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AN   INTRODUCTION   TO   THE 
HISTORY    OF    MODERN    EUROPE 


AN  INTRODUCTION 

TO  THE 

HISTORY  OF  MODERN 
EUROPE 


BY 


ARCHIBALD  WEIR,  M.A. 

AUTHOR  OF    "the  HISTORICAL  BASIS  OF  MODERN  EUROPE,"   **A  STTJDENT's 
INTRODUCTION  TO  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY" 


"  Oblivion  is  the  dark  page  whereon  Memory 
writes  her  light-beam  characters. ' '  —  Carlylk 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

1907 


GENtRM 


Published  October  iQC7 


PREFACE 

THE  purpose  of  this  volume  is  to  review  in  their 
logical  connection  the  chief  groups  of  events  which 
formed  the  groundwork  of  European  history  in  the  nine- 
teenth century.  Though  historical  in  form,  the  book  does 
not  pretend  to  be  a  history,  but  aims  only  at  presenting 
such  a  preliminary  view  of  the  immediate  antecedents 
of  modern  civilization  as  will  supply  a  sufficient  basis 
for  a  comprehensive  study  of  our  age.  To  effect  this 
object,  it  has  been  necessary  to  abandon  the  usual 
artifice  of  bringing  all  history  under  the  head  of 
politics,  and  to  distribute  the  subject  in  the  following 
manner. 

The  introductory  chapter  endeavours  to  indicate  as 
summarily  as  possible  the  evils  of  the  monarchico-feudal 
system  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  the  ideas  of  reform 
which  were  generated  by  the  contemporary  intellectual 
movement.  The  second  chapter  reviews  the  work  of 
the  chief  reforming  monarchs  and  ministers,  in  order  to 
exhibit  the  actual  state  of  Europe  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  century,  and  to  draw  attention  to  the  fact  that 
monarchy  by  its  good  offices  obtained  over  men's  minds 
considerable  influence,  which  survived  the  Revolution,  and 
has  played  a  prominent  part  in  subsequent  political  history. 
The  same  chapter,  however,  shows  how  monarchy  failed 
to  meet  all  the  urgent  wants  of  the  time ;  and  the  next 
chapter  gives  an  account  of  the  causes  which  precipi- 
tated the  Revolution.     The  fourth  chapter  deals  with  the 


165883 


vi  HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

Napoleonic  period  so  far  as  is  required  to  range  in  their 
places  the  most  notable  results  of  the  Revolutionary 
movement.  ^VTwo  morechagters  consider  the  changes 
in  Germany,  Italy,  Spam,  Russia,  Scandinavia,  Turkey, 
Servia,  and  Greece,  from  which  the  modern  history 
of  these  countries  takes  its  departure.  The  seventh 
chapter  describes  the  industrial  revolution  in  England, 
which  operated  more  than  any  other  order  of  causes  to 
change  the  conditions  of  political,  social,  and  individual 
life  throughout  civilized  communities.  The  eighth  supple- 
ments this  account  of  modern  industrialism  by  indicating 
in  outline  the  mechanical  progress  to  which  the  industrial 
revolution  was  mainly  due,  and  by  reviewing  briefly  the 
formation  of  the  theory  of  political  economy,  which  was 
to  assist  in  the  development  of  industrialism.  The 
ninth  chapter  shows  how  inductive  research  attained  to 
a  success,  which,  without  intermission,  has  led  physical 
science  to  its  present  state  of  influence  and  power.  The 
same  chapter  supplements  the  intellectual  side  of  this 
account  by  pointing  out  how  the  deeper  problems  of 
existence  received  a  new  statement  in  Germany,  which, 
with  the  tendencies  of  British  thought,  has  governed 
speculation  till  our  own  day.  In  Germany,  too,  closely 
connected  with  the  national  regeneration,  and  rich  in 
humanizing  elements,  occurred  a  literary  revival  which 
is  the  subject  of  Chapter  X.  In  England,  also,  literature 
entered  on  a  new  development,  which  enabled  it  to 
respond  to  the  needs  of  an  expanded  society,  and  to 
contribute  to  European  culture.  This  subject  is  reviewed 
in  Chapter  XL  ;  but  the  literary  innovations  in  France, 
and  some  even  in  Germany,  which  fall  within  the 
chronological  limits  covered  by  the  above  events,  are 
so  manifestly  characteristic  of  the  time  of  reaction  that 
it  would  have  exceeded  the  purpose  of  this  volume  to 
have  included  them  in  the  same  survey. 


PREFACE  vii 

A  concluding  chapter  briefly  comments  on  the  results 
of  the  foregoing  reviews,  and  demonstrates  that  the  his- 
torical problem  of  our  time  far  transcends  the  scope  of 
the  dictum  that  history  is  past  politics  and  that  politics 
are  present  history.  The  dominant  order  of  changes  is 
now,  indeed,  industrial.  It  is  the  striving  of  men  to 
obtain  wealth  and  material  comfort  that  in  this  age 
mainly  determines  the  form  and  objects  of  their  political 
organization.  It  is  this  which  sets  the  aims  of  their  self- 
culture  and  the  ideals  of  their  scientific  research.  What 
in  past  times  was  determined  by  reverence  for  God,  the 
state,  and  the  family,  or  by  fear  of  present  or  future 
punishment,  is  now  for  the  most  part  controlled  by  the 
principles  of  co-operative  production  and  distribution. 
We  have,  indeed,  the  ideas  of  religion  for  religion's 
sake,  of  art  for  art's  sake,  of  self  for  self's  sake,  of 
culture  for  culture's  sake.  But  only  in  a  secondary 
manner  do  the  ideas  of  social  perfection  and  individual 
development,  of  speculative  truth  and  positive  belief, 
influence  now  the  policy  which  proximate  utility  dictates. 
Yet  the  period  bears  no  resemblance  to  those  moments 
of  history  when  ease  and  luxury  have  been  the  guiding 
ends  of  a  ruling  few.  The  principle  of  comfort  and 
opportunity  for  all  has  yet  to  be  exhibited  in  its  full 
meaning  ;  but  it  is  as  clearly  of  quite  peculiar  character 
as  its  realization  is  evidently  the  function  of  our  age. 

The  leading  contention  of  this  book  is  that  the  period 
it  embraces  is  different  from  all  other  periods,  and  that 
the  differences  must  be  taken  into  account  if  the  teaching 
of  modern  history  is  to  be  informative  and  stimulating. 
Those  who  have  to  teach  modern  history,  as  at  present 
taught,  must  often  feel  that  they  miss  the  interest  which 
might  be  imparted  if  its  scope  were  expanded  to  compre- 
hend all  the  elements  which  constitute  our  complex  civili- 
zation.    It  is  possible  to  become  absorbed   in   all  that 


viii  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

can  be  known  or  conjectured  of  ancient  history ;  but  it 
is  difficult  to  feel  enthusiasm  for  the  study  of  a  history 
which  calls  itself  modern,  but  fails  to  deal  with  the  greater 
part  of  that  which  has  made  life  modern. 

It  has  seemed  unnecessary  to  burden  the  text  with 
references  to  authorities.  But  in  an  appendix  I  have 
given  a  list  of  the  chief  sources  of  information,  which 
should  be  used  to  extend  acquaintance  with  the  subjects 
treated  herein.  And  in  a  supplementary  list  I  have 
named  many  other  sources  which  assisted  me,  negatively 
as  well  as  positively,  to  arrive  at  my  conclusions, 
though  I  am  conscious  that  some  obligations  must  have 
eluded  me. 

A  W. 


Field  House, 
Oxford, 

December ^  1906. 


CONTENTS 


PAGB 

PREFACE   .•••.•,.,..v 

CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE  OF  NOTABLE  EVENTS       •         .         •        xi 

CHAPTER  I 
PRELIMINARY I 

CHAPTER  II 
MONARCHY  AS  A  REFORMER  ..•••,•        13 

CHAPTER  III 
THE  ADVENT  OP  THE  REVOLUTION         .  ,  ^  .         .        56 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE  NAPOLEONIC  DESPOTISM  •••••.        90 

CHAPTER  V 
THE  QUICKENING  OF  GERMANY,  ITALY,  AND  SPAIN     .  •     I31 

CHAPTER  VI 

MOVEMENTS  IN  RUSSIA,  SCANDINAVIA,  AND  THE  OTTOMAN 

EMPIRE •         •         •         •     150 

CHAPTER  VII 

THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  IN  ENGLAND  ,  .  .174 

ix 


X  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

CHAPTER  VIII 

PAGB 

THE  NEW  mechanics:   THE  NEW  ECONOMICS       .  .  .194 

CHAPTER   IX 

POSITIVE  SCIENCE  :  CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY  •  .  •  .223 

CHAPTER  X 

NATIONAL  LITERATURE  IN   GERMANY    .  .  •         ,  •     260 

CHAPTER   XI 

NATURALISM    AND  THE   REVOLUTION   IN    ENGLISH   LITERA- 
TURE    ,  •     281 

CHAPTER   XII 


RESULTANT  IDEAS  AND  TENDENCIES 303 

APPENDIX 

LIST  OF  PRINCIPAL  SOURCES  OF  INFORMATION   .  ,  •325 

LIST  OF  ADDITIONAL  SOURCES  OF    INFORMATION  .  .     326 

INDEX 331 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE  OF  NOTABLE 
EVENTS 

WHICH,  WITH  FEW  EXCEPTIONS,   ARE   REFERRED  TO 
IN  THIS  VOLUME 


1670.     Promulgation  of  the  Danish  Kongelov, 

1689.     Accession  of  Peter  the  Great. 

1 73 1.     Hadley's  reflecting  quadrant. 

1738.     John  Wesley  converted  through  the  influence  of  Peter  Bohler, 

the  Moravian. 
1740.     Accession  of  Maria  Theresa. 
1741-42.     Richardson's  Pamela.     Fielding's  Joseph  Andrews, 

1748.  Accession  of  Frederick  the  Great. 

1749.  Hartley's  Observations  on  Man. 

1750.  Pombal's  Ministry  begins  in  Portugal. 

[circa)   Pianoforte  derived  from  the  spinet  and  harpsichord 
(Cristofori's  cembalo  col  Piano  e  forte  exhibited  in  Florence 
early  in  the  century). 
1752.     Franklin's  kite. 

1755.  Earthquake  destroys  Lisbon. 
Kant's  Nebular  Hypothesis. 
Haydn's  first  string  quartett. 

1756.  Accession  to  power  of  the  elder  Pitt 

1759.  Accession  of  Charles  III.  of  Spain, 

1760.  Accession  of  George  III. 
1762.     Accession  of  Catherine  II. 

Rousseau's  Contrat  Social. 
1765.     Harrison's  marine  chronometer. 
1767.     First  nautical  almanack  published. 
1768-70.     Arthur  Young  makes  his  tours. 

1768-71.     Captain  (then  lieutenant)  Cook's  first  voyage  in  H.M.  Bark 
Endeavour. 
1 769.     Arkwright's  first  patent  for  spinning  by  rollers. 
Watt  patents  his  reciprocating  steam-engine. 


xii  HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

1771-72.     Herder  associates  with  Goethe  at  Strasburg. 

1772.  Coup  d'kat  of  Gustavus  III. 
First  Partition  of  Poland. 
Maskelyne's  Schehallion  measurements. 

1773.  Publication  of  Brief  "  Dominus  ac  Redemptor  Noster." 
Accession  of  Victor  Amadeus  III. 

1774.  Accession  of  Louis  XVI. 

Turgot  becomes  Minister  of  Finance. 

Priestley  disengages  oxygen  from  mercuric  oxide. 

Goethe's  Werther. 

Treaty  of  Kutchuk-Kainardji. 

1775.  Goethe  removes  to  "Weimar. 

1776.  Fall  of  Turgot's  ministry. 
Declaration  of  American  Independence. 

1780.  Accession  of  Joseph  II. 

Jeremy  Bentham's  Introduction  to  Principles  of  Morals  and 
Legislation, 
1780-91.     Mozart's  maturest  compositions. 

1 78 1.  Kant's  Kritik  der  reinen  Vemunft. 
Schiller's  Rduber. 

1783.  Accession  to  power  of  the  younger  Pitt. 
Crabbe's  The  Village, 

1 784.  Cort  patents  improved  processes  for  puddling  and  rolling  pig  iron. 
Goethe    composes   his    Essay    on    the    intermaxillary   bone ; 

published  30  years  later. 
Cowper's  The  Task, 
Herder's  Ideen  zur  philosophic  der  Geschichte, 

1786.  Pitt's  futile  Sinking  Fund  established. 
Death  of  Frederick  the  Great. 
Burns'  Kilmarnock  Poems. 

1787.  Dr.  Cartwright  patents  his  power-loom. 

Werner :  Kurzer  Klassificationund  Beschreibungderverschiedentn 
Gebirgsarten. 

1788.  Threshing-machine  invented  by  Meikle. 
Abolition  of  the  Danish  slave-trade. 

1789.  Meeting  of  the  States-General  at  Versailles, 
Accession  of  Selim  III. 

Schiller  professor  in  Jena. 

1790.  The  Faust  fragment  published. 

1791.  The  Birmingham  Riots. 
Treaty  of  Sistova. 

1792.  Outbreak  of  the  Revolutionary  War. 
Treaty  of  Jassy. 

Beethoven  invited  to  Vienna  by  Haydn  (1823:  The  Choral 
Symphony  completed). 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE  xiii 

1793.  Board  of  Agriculture  established. 

1794.  Friendship  of  Schiller  and  Goethe. 

1795.  The  "  Speenhamland  *  Act  of  the  Berkshire  Magistrates.' " 
Bramah  patents  his  hydraulic  press. 

Button's  Theory  of  the  Earth  (Playfair's  Illustration,  1802), 

1796.  Death  of  Catherine  II. 
Laplace's  Nebular  Hypothesis. 

1797.  Peace  of  Campo  Formio. 

Dr.  Andrew  Bell  publishes  his  pupil-teacher  system, 

1798.  Law  of  Conscription  in  France. 
Malthus's  Essay  on  Population. 

Lyrical  Ballads  I  C^td^^-h. 
Schiller's  WcUlensteih's  Lager. 

1799.  Coup  ePEtat.     Brumaire  18  (Nov.  9). 

Schleiermacher's   Ueber  die  Religion.     Reden  an  die  Gebildeten 

unter  ihren  Verdchtern, 
At  the  end  of  the  century  the  English  practice  of  applying  the 

era  of  the  Annus  Domini  for  reckoning  the  years  B.C.  was 

adopted  on  the  Continent. 

1800.  Union  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 

Rumford  (William  Thompson)  asserts  that  heat  is  motion. 
Nicholson  and  Carlisle  decompose  water  by  electrolysis. 
Volta's  electric  pile. 
Bichat — Traiti  des  membranes, 

1801.  Peace  of  Luneville. 

Concordat  between  Bonaparte  and  Pius  VII. 

Wheat  in  England,  156J.  2d.  per  quarter. 

Young's  Bakerian  Lecture  on  the  Undulatory  Theory  of  Light. 

Southey's  Thalaba. 

1802.  The  first  Factory  Act,  restricted  to  apprentices. 

The  SS.  Charlotte  Dundas  is  successful,  but  is  prohibited. 

Herschel  shows  that  orbitual  motions  exist  among  the  binary 
stars. 

Jenner  voted  first  parliamentary  grant  for  introducing  vaccina- 
tion. 

Edinburgh  Review. 

1803.  Berzelius's  Essay  on  the  Division  of  Salts  through  Galvanism, 

1804.  Bonaparte  created  Emperor. 
Code  Napoleon. 

1805.  Third  Coalition  war. 
Battle  of  Trafalgar. 

Dalton  discovers  law  of  chemical  combination  by  multiple  propor- 
tions. 
Scott's  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel. 


xiv         HISTORY    OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

1806.  Overthrow  of  Prussia. 

Davy's  Bakerian  lecture  on  electrolysis. 

War  between  Russia  and  Turkey  :  Servian  revolt, 

1807.  Peace  of  Tilsit. 

Abolition  of  the  British  slave-trade. 
Edict  of  Emancipation  in  Prussia. 
1807-8.     Fichte's  Reden  an  die  deutscJu  Nation, 

1808.  Napoleon  invades  Spain. 
Russia  seizes  Finland. 

Romilly  succeeds  in  commuting  the  death  penalty  to  transporta- 
tion for  picking  pockets. 
Accession  of  Mahmoud  II. 
First  part  of  Goethe's  Faust. 
Vaccination  made  compulsory  in  Bavaria. 

1809.  Franco-Austrian  war  :  Peace  of  Vienna. 
Dethronement  of  Gustavus  IV.  :  accession  of  Charles  XIII. 
Lamarck's  theory  of  evolution. 

Byron's  English  Bards  and  Scotch  Reviewers. 
Quarterly  Review. 

18 10.  Napoleon  marries  Marie  Louise  of  Austria, 
Assembly  of  the  Spanish  Cortes  in  Cadiz. 

Six  hundred  British  ships  and  cargoes  in  the  Baltic  sequestered 
under  the  Continental  system  in  the  ports  of  Prussia,  Russia, 
and  Sweden. 

Wellington  responsible  for  continued  resistance  against  the 
Napoleonic  despotism. 

Election  of  Bernadotte  as  Crown  Prince  of  Sweden. 

Berlin  University  takes  the  place  of  Jena. 

181 1.  Bell  (afterwards  Sir  Charles)  distinguishes  between  sensory  and 

motor  nerves  in  his  New  Idea  of  the  Anatomy  of  the  Brain. 
Peasants  in  Prussia  granted  land  in  fee  by  commutation. 
Jane  Austen's  Sense  and  Sensibility. 

1812.  Fall  of  Speranski  in  Russia. 
Napoleon's  Russian  campaign. 

The  Spanish  Cortes  in  Cadiz  publishes  a  constitution. 

Peace  of  Bucharest. 

The  Philomuse  Society  established. 

Best  Dantzig  wheat  in  Mark  Lane,  180J.  a  quarter. 

Cuvier's  Recherches  sur  les  Ossemens  fossiles  de  Quadrupides, 

Byron's  Childe  Harold. 

1813.  Treaty  of  Kalisch. 
Battle  of  Leipzig. 

Ferdinand  VII.  becomes  King  of  Spain. 

Arndt's  Der  Rhein   Deutschlands  Strom    nicht  Deutschlands 
Grenze. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE  x? 

1813.  J.  B.  Say's  Traiti  d^ Economic  Politique, 

1 8 14.  Deposition  of  Napoleon. 
1814-15.     Congress  of  Vienna. 

Norway  united  to  the  Swedish  crown. 

The  Philike  Hetairia  established. 

The  Times,  November  28th,  printed  by  steam, 

Scott's  Waver  ley. 

Korner's  Lder  und  Schwert. 

1815.  The  hundred  days,  March — June. 
Battle  of  Waterloo. 

Davy's  miners'  safety-lamp. 
William  Smith's  geological  map. 
1815-16.     Schubert's  Erlkonig  (Op.  i). 

1816.  Shelley's  Alastor. 

181 7.  Ricardo's  Principles  of  Political  Economy  and  Taxation, 

1 8 18.  Keats'  Endymion. 

1 82 1 .     Death  of  Napoleon. 

1829.     James  Mill's  Analysis  of  the  Phenomena  of  the  Human  Mind, 


AN   INTRODUCTION 

TO   THE 

HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

CHAPTER   I 
PRELIMINARY 

"'Tistime 
New  hopes  should  animate  the  world,  new  light 
Should  dawn  from  new  revealings  to  a  race 
Weighed  down  so  long,  forgotten  so  long." 

Robert  Browning. 

Monarchy  at  the  Head  of  the  Modern  State. — By  the 
beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  Europe  had  aban- 
doned for  ever  the  feudal  system  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
Monarchies  had  long  usurped  the  powers  of  govern- 
ment. They  had  successfully  centralized  authority  in 
their  own  hands,  and  had  made  themselves  independent 
of  partially  responsible  delegates.  They  had  given 
internal  peace  to  the  districts  brought  under  their  rule ; 
and  the  communities,  which  had  thus  been  permitted  to 
expand,  had  developed  far  beyond  the  limits  covered 
by  the  old  institutions.  They  presided  over  important 
classes,  which  were  unknown  to  the  purely  feudal 
regime;  while  the  classes,  which  still  seemed  to  fill  the 
places  they  formerly  occupied,  had  been  deprived  by 
the  royal  policy  and  the  progress  of  society  of  their 
original  basis  and  functions.  And  as  the  monarchies  had 
possessed  themselves  of  a  monopoly  of  the  management 

B  I 


2  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

of  internal  public  affairs,  so  they  had  rendered  them- 
selves indispensable  to  the  control  of  external  relations. 
Having  welded  the  people  into  nations,  a  system  of 
international  intercourse  had  grown  up  under  their 
auspices,  which  could  neither  be  neglected  without  con- 
stant danger  to  the  communities,  nor  be  entrusted  to 
the  care  of  others  without  grave,  even  if  temporary, 
inconvenience.  In  short,  the  modern  state,  with  mon- 
archy at  the  head,  was  too  firmly  founded  to  admit  the 
possibility  of  a  return  to  mediaeval  feudalism. 

Persistence  of  the  Feudal  Order. — ^Yet,  though 
irrevocably  superseded,  the  feudal  order  still  retained  a 
powerful  hold  upon  European  institutions.  In  most 
countries  there  still  remained  nearly  intact  a  great  part 
of  the  old  organization  which  sovereigns  had  not  found 
it  in  their  power  or  to  their  interest  to  destroy.  From 
a  feudal  basis  the  monarchies  had  risen,  and  on  a  feudal 
basis  they  continued  to  rest.  Hardly  an  institution 
existed  beneath  the  throne  which  did  not  bear  on  its 
face  proof  of  derivation  from  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
thrones  themselves  were  often  surrounded  by  customs 
and  limitations  which  indicated  to  the  least  careful 
observer  the  origin  from  which  they  had  sprung.  The 
whole  social  structure  was  still  formed  after  a  mediaeval 
type.  The  peasantry,  when  not  sunk  in  serfage,  was 
still  subject  to  feudal  dues  and  exactions.  The  nobility, 
though  stripped  of  its  ancient  power,  still  enjoyed  most 
of  the  privileges  and  exemptions  it  had  possessed  in  the 
days  of  its  territorial  greatness,  together  with  new  ones 
awarded  as  compensation  for  its  confiscated  power. 
The  Church,  where  Catholicism  still  guarded  its  acqui- 
sitions from  secular  impiety  and  Protestant  reform, 
likewise  retained  its  share  of  material  and  social 
advantages,  with  a  large  measure  of  its  intolerance 
and  darkness.     The   armies,  though  by  their  regular 


PRELIMINARY  8 

maintenance  the  final  triumph  of  monarchy  had  been 
achieved,  were  divided  into  grades  to  correspond  with 
the  division  between  the  nobility  and  the  peasantry. 
Manufacturing  industry  and  trade  were  controlled  by 
an  elaborate  and  cramping  system  of  guilds,  monopolies, 
and  fiscal  hindrances.  Municipal  constitutions  were 
founded  either  on  charter,  often  obtained  by  repeated 
purchase,  or  on  mediaeval  tradition.  The  law  cheated 
equity  with  delays  and  out-worn  precedents,  while 
justice  itself  was  perverted  by  prescriptive  inequalities, 
and  stained  with  the  cruelty  of  barbarous  times. 

Consequent  Burdens  on  Society. — The  result  of 
this  persistence  of  an  effete  system  along  with  the 
development  of  a  new  order  was  naturally  very  dis- 
astrous to  the  greater  part  of  society.  The  former 
rulers  and  leaders  of  the  people  still  received  their 
dues  and  advantages  without  performing  in  return 
their  corresponding  duties.  Nay,  where  they  retained 
a  pretence  to  responsibility,  they  too  often  abused 
their  office,  or  sold  it  to  extortioners.  They  had 
been  rendered  superfluous  by  the  course  of  events, 
yet  they  still  enjoyed  the  most  splendid  share  of  the 
good  things  produced  by  the  community.  The  power 
which  had  displaced  them  did  not,  however,  demand 
one  whit  the  less  reward  for  doing  the  work.  On  the 
contrary,  instrumental  though  it  had  been  in  dragging 
the  people  out  of  the  feudal  mire,  it  contracted  some 
very  oppressive  vices  in  consequence  of  the  presence 
of  the  aristocracy.  The  better  to  secure  the  willing 
homage  of  the  territorial  nobility,  monarchy  had  en- 
veloped itself  in  a  magnificence  irresistibly  attractive 
to  a  vain  and  idle  caste.  It  also  kept  at  the  public 
expense  a  number  of  rich  and  dignified  offices  and 
sinecures,  which  could  be  dispensed  as  rewards  to  those 
notables  who  were  fortunate  enough  to  win  favour,  or 


4  HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

were  formidable  enough  to  require  conciliation.  Nor 
were  these  burdens  redeemed  by  economy  in  the 
necessary  expenses  of  government.  It  is  notorious 
that  in  this  respect  the  new  order  could  claim  no 
advantage  over  the  old,  while  it  was  more  subject  to 
wasteful  and  corrupt  practices.  To  all  of  which 
charges  must  be  added  frequent  engagements  in  long 
and  costly  wars  undertaken  from  ambitious,  frivolous, 
and  unworthy  motives.  The  nations,  moreover,  found 
in  the  economic  policy  of  the  monarchies  no  help  to 
enable  them  to  sustain  these  gratuitous  burdens.  With 
the  internal  pacification  of  the  land  and  the  expansion 
of  society,  industry  had  long  outgrown  the  swaddling 
clothes  of  infancy ;  but  little  had  been  done  to  ease  it 
from  their  stifling  folds  by  the  national  economic  policy 
of  the  time. 

Anomalous  Position  of  the  Catholic  Church. — 
The  ecclesiastical  foundation  was,  perhaps,  as  rotten 
as  any  part  of  the  feudal  regime,  but  it  scarcely  merits 
the  unqualified  condemnation  which  the  privileges  of 
the  nobility,  the  trade  corporations,  and  the  central  and 
provincial  fiscs  seldom  escape.  The  vast  possessions 
and  feudal  powers  of  the  Church  no  longer  served  their 
original  purpose,  and,  beside  being  to  this  extent  harmful 
to  the  interests  of  the  community,  were  generally  mis- 
applied, to  the  utter  demoralization  of  the  higher  clergy 
and  the  monstrous  multiplication  of  slothful  monks  and 
nuns.  Yet  where  its  organization  touched  the  wants  of 
the  people,  it  probably  satisfied  them  as  well  as  was 
practicable  under  the  circumstances.  Through  its  lower 
clergy  and  charitable  institutions  it  did  much  to  comfort 
the  classes  crushed  by  the  burdens  imposed  by  this  un- 
equably  constituted  state  of  society,  and  it  afforded  in 
some  sort  a  refuge  to  many  too  unkindly  stricken  by  an 
ignoble  lot. 


PRELIMINARY  5 

Need  of  Agitation  for  Reform. — Europe,  then,  it  is 
evident,  needed  thorough  social  regeneration.  It  would 
have  been  the  better  for  judicious  reform  from  the 
moment  when  invasion  by  the  new  order  rendered 
superfluous  a  single  detail  of  the  ancient  institutions. 
But  history  teaches  that  reforms  are  seldom  timely,  and 
that  hitherto  they  have  been  usually  remedies  for  the 
insufferable  rather  than  wise  concessions  to  the  in- 
evitable. Nevertheless,  it  would  be  erroneous  to  suppose 
that  the  evils  under  which  Europe  was  groaning  could 
find  reparation  by  simply  becoming  extreme.  Evil 
alone  never  determines  the  point  beyond  which  reform 
cannot  be  deferred.  In  the  collapse  of  the  rottenest 
systems  the  action  of  some  extraneous  factor  is  ever 
discernible.  The  maladies  from  which  Europe  was 
suffering  might  have  been  a  thousand-fold  worse,  yet 
they  would  have  been  only  the  more  obstinate  if  it  had 
not  been  for  the  interference  of  an  agency  sufficiently 
strong,  well  situated,  and  instructed,  at  once  to  upset 
the  existing  equilibrium  and  to  point  out  a  better  ideal 
for  reconstruction. 

The  Eighteenth-century  Movement. — This  agency 
was  the  so-called  eighteenth-century  movement.  Never 
before  did  an  intangible  force  so  overwhelm  society. 
It  mastered  the  talent  of  the  time ;  it  gained  respect, 
often  homage,  from  kings ;  it  fascinated  the  nobility, 
enchanted  the  middle  classes,  and,  finally,  percolated 
downwards  to  produce  a  ferment  in  the  lowest  strata. 
Yet  the  movement  was  not  due  to  the  proselytizing 
fervour  of  some  inspired  evangelist,  or  to  the  persuasive 
example  of  some  beautiful  character.  Empty,  vain, 
and  babbling,  as  it  may  seem  to  sages  of  to-day,  it  was 
to  its  generation  a  spring  of  wisdom  welling  from  the 
recesses  of  the  past  up  to  the  surface  of  human  life.  It 
was  a  great  revulsion  of  feeling  against  established  evil, 


6  HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

excited  by  the  world  coming  to  a  consciousness  of  its 
advance  in  knowledge  and  in  reason.  The  discoveries 
of  science  and  the  gropings  of  philosophy  had  given 
man  courage  to  confront  his  life,  to  probe  it,  to  judge  it, 
and  to  condemn  in  it  what  seemed  to  him  not  good. 
Persuaded  that  he  had  learnt  to  know  good  from  evil, 
he  subjected  his  existence  to  such  scrutiny  as,  two 
centuries  earlier,  the  Protestant  reformers  had  applied 
to  his  religion.  Great  names  are  associated  with  certain 
aspects  of  this  movement,  but  to  no  individual  did  it 
owe  its  existence  or  success.  As  it  burst  spontaneously 
to  the  surface,  so  it  swept  along  by  its  own  irresistible 
force,  independent  of  the  fortunes  of  a  name,  unhindered 
by  the  vicissitudes  of  a  clique. 

Objects  of  Attack  by  the  Movement. — Though 
essentially  an  intellectual  movement,  it  was,  of  course, 
primarily  founded  on  that  progress  of  society  which  had 
taken  place  beneath  the  aegis  of  monarchy.  Its  onset 
was  mainly  directed  against  feudal  abuses  and  ecclesias- 
tical imposition.  Kings  incurred  attack  only  so  far  as 
they  were  guilty  of  tolerating  and  perpetuating  these 
evils,  or  were  inclined  to  create  others  as  bad  by 
arrogating  to  their  office  rights  and  sanctions  incon- 
sistent with  the  progress  and  welfare  of  society.  What- 
ever was  seen  to  oppress  the  individual  in  mind  or  body 
was  exposed  and  held  up  to  burning  obloquy  ;  whatever 
appeared  anomalous,  grotesque,  cumbersome,  or  fraudu- 
lent, was  given  a  prey  to  scathing  ridicule.  Nothing 
was  too  venerable,  too  sacred,  or  too  august,  for  irreverent 
discussion.  Into  one  omnivorous  crucible  of  criticism 
was  thrown  every  heritage  from  the  past. 

The  Age  of  Criticism. — It  was  indeed  the  age  of 
criticism.  "  Unser  Zeitalter  ist  das  eigentliche  Zeitalter 
der  Kritik,  der  sich  alles  unterwerfen  muss,"  said  Kant 
in  1 78 1,  when  he  put  forth  the  most  subversive  inquiry 


PRELIMINARY  7 

which  the  old  beliefs  have  had  to  encounter.  Kant's 
own  criticism  was  as  far  removed  from  the  prevailing 
tone  as  judgment  is  from  mockery,  yet  the  age  is  rightly 
thus  characterized  if  recklessness  and  crudeness  of 
method  can  assure  it  the  title,  in  preference  to  our  own 
inquisitive  reforming  time.  For  the  power  of  the 
dominant  criticism  is  not  to  be  found  in  a  happy 
combination  of  energy  and  determination  with  sound 
knowledge  and  ripe  wisdom.  Rather  it  was  because  its 
destructive  force  and  persistence  were  unhindered  by 
wise  regard  for  the  less  apparent  conditions  of  life  that 
its  onset  was  so  desperate  and  unfaltering.  The 
vexations  and  anomalies  of  the  effete  social  state 
provoked  the  hostility  of  the  intelligence  which  had 
exercised  itself  in  the  physical  investigations  of  Newton, 
and  in  the  analytical  discourse  of  Locke.  At  the  hands 
of  such  an  adversary,  the  traditional  order  could  not  but 
receive  unceremonious  treatment.  No  historic  sense 
tempered  indignation  against  prescriptive  abuse.*  No 
well-considered  lore  extenuated  the  crimes  of  the  exist- 
ing order  by  giving  a  glimpse  into  the  dangers  and 
difficulties  which  beset  the  path  of  social  development. 
But  as  primitive  observers  of  nature  impute  apparent 
anomalies  to  devilish  or  capricious  design,  so  did  the 
critics  of  this  social  state  ridicule  and  declaim  against 
every  blemish,  as  if  it  were  the  work  of  deliberate 
villainy  and  guile.  And  there  was  no  one  sufficiently 
well-informed  and  eloquent  to  indict  them  before  the 
people  for  ignorant  travesty.  No  wonder,  then,  that 
they  converted  the  public  to  their  views;  no  wonder 

*  That  the  critical  movement  never  came  under  the  discipline  of  sober 
and  candid  retrospection  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  fact  that  the  writings 
of  Montesquieu,  Turgot,  and  Voltaire  introduced  a  new  era  of  historical 
study,  and  that  even  in  the  famous  book  of  Helvetius,  a  new  and  truer 
view  of  the  past  found  expression.  But  these  were  consequences  rather 
than  determining  factors  of  the  movement. 


8  HISTORY   OF   MODERN   EUROPE 

that  Burke  had  occasion  to  lament  that  all  the  solemn 
plausibilities  of  the  world  had  lost  their  reverence  and 
effect. 

Secular  Character  of  Rationalism. — The  first  step 
in  the  evolution  of  progressive  ideas  was  significant  of 
its  ulterior  results.  Until  discredit  had  been  thrown 
on  the  belief  that  the  world  was  governed  by  Divine 
ordinance,  and  that  the  Christian  Church  was  the  repre- 
sentative on  earth  of  this  supernatural  dispensation,  it 
was  impossible  for  rationalism  to  approach  the  existing 
social  arrangements  with  unfettered  action.  This  con- 
dition English  deism  effectually  performed  so  far  as  the 
thinkers  of  the  Continent  were  concerned.  In  its  own 
home,  deism  neither  enjoyed  a  sufficiently  prosperous 
career,  nor  was  surrounded  by  appropriate  circumstances, 
to  affect  very  seriously  the  current  social  creed.  Its 
sceptical  attacks  were  met  by  a  number  of  orthodox 
divines,  who  knew  well  how  to  plead  their  cause  with 
effect  before  the  English  mind.  Nor  was  its  tendency 
to  encourage  free-thinking  likely  to  influence  materially 
the  national  manner  of  regarding  social  questions  in  a 
country  where  Protestantism  had  long  been  dominant, 
and  had  recently  issued  triumphant  from  a  revolutionary 
conflict  with  one  of  the  Lord's  anointed.  On  the  Con- 
tinent, however,  neither  able  apologists  nor  sober  habits 
of  independent  judgment  and  action  existed  to  dull  zest 
for  sceptical  doctrines.  Such  doctrines  addressed  them- 
selves with  more  than  their  real  cogency  to  an  eager 
audience.  They  combined  with  a  debased  version  of 
metaphysic  from  the  same  country  to  flatter  the  thinkers 
of  civilized  Europe  that  they  had  at  last  obtained 
complete  freedom  from  the  bonds  of  superstition,  and 
the  possession  of  a  philosophy  worthy  of  the  dignity 
of  human  nature,  and  adequate  to  all  the  needs  of 
human  life. 


PRELIMINARY  9 

Diffusion  of  Rationalism. — The  teaching  gained 
reception  through  a  people  especially  open  to  its  charms, 
and  peculiarly  fitted  to  be  its  promulgator.  In  those 
days  France,  though  ready  to  borrow  the  thoughts  of 
England,  possessed  the  intellectual  hegemony  of  conti- 
nental Europe.  French  was  the  language  of  culture 
and  polite  society  in  all  lands,  and  French  works  were 
classics  for  the  whole  reading  public.  France,  however, 
had  exhausted  its  race  of  great  writers  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  and  had  been  left  by  Bayle  in  a  state  of 
fertile  receptiveness  for  any  philosophical  theorizing 
which  might  prove  a  relief  to  the  hollowness  of  the 
society  bequeathed  to  Europe  by  Louis  XIV.  Trans- 
planted to  this  soil,  the  infidelity,  the  sensational 
philosophy,  and  the  Newtonian  science  of  England 
produced  a  growth  of  lax  ethics,  of  scientific  scepticism, 
and  shallow  metaphysic,  which  permitted  society  to 
indulge  its  immoral  proclivities,  absolved  it  from  the 
dread  of  future  punishment,  and  at  the  same  time 
interested  it  with  serious  discussion.  This  intellectual 
tendency  thence  spread  through  Europe,  and  became 
the  most  marked  characteristic  of  the  age. 

Principle  of  Equality. — There  was  a  very  close 
logical  connection  between  the  dominant  scepticism  and 
the  main  notions  for  which  it  prepared  the  way.  Men 
came  to  distrust  both  the  dogmas  of  revealed  religion 
and  the  pretensions  of  the  established  order  to  Divine 
dispensation  because  they  had  come  to  acquire  more 
confidence  in  their  own  reason  and  intrinsic  dignity  ;  in 
other  words,  because  they  had  come  to  regard  them- 
selves, not  as  cyphers  to  which  artificial  value  was  given 
by  an  external  power,  but  as  units  possessing  the  same 
inherent  worth,  though  ranged  in  a  variously  graduated 
order.  Hence  followed  the  theory  of  the  natural 
equality  of  men,  which  appears  throughout  the  movement 


10  HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

under  the  guise  of  philanthropy,  humanitarianism, 
democratic  ideals,  individualism,  and  belief  in  human 
perfectibility.  It  was  this  which  gave  the  key-note  to 
the  tritest  complaint  of  the  time,  but  echoed  by  Rous- 
seau when  he  announced  that  men  were  born  free  but 
are  everywhere  in  chains.  From  the  doctrine  of  the 
natural  equality  of  men  sprang  the  whole  portentous 
brood  of  eighteenth-century  ideas.  Whether  quickened 
by  pity  into  philanthropy,  or  by  sympathy  into  humani- 
tarianism, the  doctrine  remained  essentially  the  same. 
Whether  logic  deduced  from  it  the  rights  of  man,  demo- 
cratic principles  of  government,  or  the  axioms  of  social 
end  personal  liberty,  it  never  lost  its  identity.  Even 
the  sentimental  enthusiasm  for  the  state  of  nature  was 
but  a  reflex  from  the  dreams  of  the  equality  which 
Nature  was  believed  to  have  intended  man  to  realize. 

Confidence  in  the  Intervention  of  Monarchy. — 
The  passion  for  equality  was  not,  however,  incompatible 
with  confidence  in  the  good  offices  of  despotism. 
Desire  for  disciplined  freedom  was  still  distant  from 
the  minds  of  men  accustomed  to  accept  all  amelioration 
from  the  hands  of  monarchy.  And  herein,  again,  the 
influence  of  France  made  itself  strongly  felt.  In  no 
country  had  the  absolute  power  of  the  Crown  more 
firmly  established  itself,  or  struck  deeper  root  into  the 
minds  of  the  people.  No  sturdy  national  instinct 
existed  here  to  fend  impetuous  malcontents  from  a 
delusive  belief  in  the  inimitably  beneficial  powers  which 
a  well-intentioned  monarch  might  exercise :  no  partici- 
pation in  public  affairs  kept  the  literary  theorists  aware 
of  the  practical  difficulties  which  hedge  even  the 
benevolence  of  kings.  But  long  disuse  of  the  liberties 
of  self-government,  and  the  severe  tutelage  to  which  the 
Crown  had  subjected  the  nation,  had  well-nigh  destroyed 
all  manly  trust  of  the  people  in  their  own  ability  to 


PRELIMINARY  11 

govern  themselves.  The  gravest  advocates  of  reform 
congratulated  the  country  on  its  possession  of  a  head 
who,  without  risking  the  compromises  of  party  warfare, 
could  yet  give  it  perfect  institutions  by  the  well-directed 
exercise  of  lawful  prerogative.  The  fancied  liberties  of 
the  English  people  were  often  regarded  with  contempt. 
The  restrictions  of  a  traditional  constitution  were  con- 
ceived to  defeat  the  possibility  of  a  true  emancipation. 

Grounds  for  relying  on  Reform  by  Monarchs. — 
Nor  were  these  sanguine  expectations  unwarranted  by 
the  situation  itself  and  the  actual  events  of  the  time. 
Of  the  recognized  powers  into  which  European  society 
was  then  divided,  the  first,  which  seemed  to  have  claims 
to  the  reforming  rdky  was  certainly  the  Crown.  Not 
only  were  the  selfish  interests  of  the  aristocracy  and 
higher  clergy  inimical  to  change,  but  the  prospect  of 
solid  advantage  appeared  to  invite  monarchs  to  bring 
their  states  out  of  the  slough  of  anomaly  and  inequality. 
What  could  better  promise  to  increase  the  number  of 
their  subjects  than  measures  for  adjusting  fortunes  to 
a  natural  level?  What  could  better  save  them  from 
the  vexations  of  an  inelastic  revenue  than  an  equable 
distribution  of  taxation  and  the  grant  of  freedom  to  the 
spontaneous  energies  of  their  people  ?  How  could  they 
hope  to  obtain  better  servants  or  more  able  ministers 
than  by  inviting  merit  to  serve  the  state  without  dis- 
tinction of  birth,  and  by  opening  to  all  responsible  and 
arduous  offices  a  road  for  those  classes  whose  minds 
and  faculties  had  been  trained,  developed,  and  informed 
in  the  real  business  of  life }  Whence  could  they  expect 
to  get  faithful  and  enlightened  teachers  for  their  people 
if  the  popular  and  established  religion  were  disfigured 
by  careless  and  sensual  dignitaries  ?  Obscured  as  was 
often  their  view  of  the  real  state  of  affairs  by  the  con- 
ditions of  their  station,  and  frivolous  when  not  vicious, 


12  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

as  were  frequently  their  characters,  the  princes  as  a 
body  could  not  entirely  fail  to  see  what  type  of  social 
system  would  most  inure  to  their  advantage.  And  if 
self-interest  attracted  them  to  become  the  regenerators 
of  modern  society,  their  power  unmistakably  singled 
them  out  as  the  executors  of  any  considerable  reform. 
Though  not  omnipotent,  their  authority  so  far  trans- 
cended that  of  any  other  body  in  their  states  that,  while 
little  or  nothing  could  be  achieved  without  their  sanction 
or  connivance,  a  determined  and  judicious  effort  on 
their  part  was  capable  of  carrying  through  the  most 
extensive  improvements. 


CHAPTER  II 

MONARCHY  AS  A  REFORMER 

"  Though  all  kinds  of  government  be  improved  in  modem  times, 
yet  monarchial  government  seems  to  '  have  made  the  greatest 
advances  towards  perfection.  It  may  now  be  affirmed  of  civilized 
monarchies,  what  was  formerly  said  in  praise  of  republics  alone, 
that  they  are  a  government  of  Laws,  not  of  Men.  They  are  found 
susceptible  of  order,  method,  and  constancy  to  a  surprising  degree. 
Property  is  there  secure  ;  industry  encouraged ;  the  arts  flourish ; 
and  the  prince  lives  secure  among  his  subjects,  like  a  father  among 
his  children.  It  must,  however,  be  confessed  that,  though 
monarchial  governments  have  approached  nearer  to  popular 
ones  in  gentleness  and  stability,  they  are  still  inferior.  Our 
modern  education  and  customs  instil  more  humanity  and  modera- 
tion than  the  ancient,  but  have  not  as  yet  been  able  to  overcome 
entirely  the  disadvantages  of  that  form  of  government." 

David  Hume. 

"  Le  souverain  bien  loin  d'etre  le  maitre  absolu  des  peuples  qui 
sont  sous  sa  domination,  n'en  est  lui-meme  que  le  premier 
domestique." 

Frederick  the  Great. 

Monarchy  and  the  Eighteenth-century  Movement. 
— Monarchy  did  not  ignore  the  claim  of  progress  on 
its  resources,  and  the  appeal  of  enlightenment  to  its 
interests  ;  nor  did  it  refuse  to  take  counsel  with  the 
irresponsible  thinkers.  Contemporaneously  with  the 
intellectual  movement,  the  policy  of  many  rulers  was 
directed  with  notable  energy  towards  the  more  complete 
defeudalization  of  their  states  and  the  better  co-ordina- 
tion of  their  administrative  functions.     And  as  these 

13 


14  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

steps  were  taken  partly  in  recognition  of  the  social 
principles  recommended  by  speculatists,  so  they  reacted 
again  upon  the  theories  of  writers  and  confirmed  their 
reliance  on  the  exertions  of  sovereigns.  But  the  reaction 
was  not  exactly  a  rebound  of  the  original  influence. 
The  reforming  monarchs  were  by  no  means  mere  pupils 
of  the  philosophers.  They  were  rather  co-operators 
with  a  lesson  of  their  own  to  enforce.  The  lesson,  it  is 
true,  agreed  well  with  the  doctrine  of  the  theorists,  but 
it  was  none  the  less  the  property  of  the  sovereigns.  It 
consisted  in  overruling  with  entire  want  of  tenderness 
everything  which  stood  in  the  way  of  their  plans  and 
aggrandisement.  Were  they  plighted  engagements, 
ancient  treaties,  respectable  traditions,  or  recognized 
rights  of  sentient  individuals, — if  they  did  not  possess 
sufficient  vigour  to  secure  respect,  they  had  to  submit 
to  very  inconsiderate  treatment  at  the  hands  of  reforming 
absolutism. 

Peter  the  Great,  1689-1725. — The  first  great  reform- 
ing monarch  of  the  century  was  not,  however,  immedi- 
ately concerned  with  the  defeudalizing  process  in 
Western  Europe.  Peter  the  Great,  if  judged  by  the 
effect  of  his  work  on  the  development  of  Russia,  must 
be  considered  one  of  the  greatest  figures  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  But  the  state  of  Russia  at  that  time  was  too 
far  removed  from  that  of  its  more  advanced  neighbours 
for  his  reign  to  present  many  points  of  direct  contact 
with  the  liberalism  of  the  Western  monarchies.  Yet 
he  has  claims  to  an  honourable  position  among  the 
reforming  sovereigns.  The  transfer  of  the  hegemony 
of  the  North  from  Sweden  to  Russia,  and  the  conversion 
of  the  latter  from  an  Asiatic  state  into  an  influential 
European  power,  were  events  which  demonstrated  in 
good  season  the  possible  strength  of  autocracy.  Hence- 
forth the  Western  states  had  to  reckon  with  a  Russian 


MONARCHY  AS  A  REFORMER  15 

factor  in  their  international  policy.  This  obligation,  it 
is  true,  they  at  first  believed  to  involve  few  less  favour- 
able incidents  than  assistance  in  partitioning  Poland,  or 
gratuitous  crusades  for  the  discomfiture  of  the  Turk, 
but  it  nevertheless  urged  with  considerable  cogency  the 
possibilities  within  the  reach  of  absolute  power. 

Character  of  Peter's  Example. — Nor  did  the  effects 
of  Peter's  example  stop  here.  Semi-barbarian  though 
he  was,  and  benighted  as  was  his  country,  he  exhibited 
in  a  conspicuous  manner  traits  peculiarly  characteristic 
of  the  liberal  absolutism  of  the  eighteenth  century.  To 
guide  him  in  reforming  the  internal  administration  of 
Russia,  he  had  recourse  to  the  philosopher  Leibniz; 
and  to  help  him  in  improving  the  material  and  intel- 
lectual resources  of  his  country,  he  laid  under  contribu- 
tion every  department  of  Western  civilization.  He 
despised  no  part  of  the  enlightenment  of  his  time,  and 
ever  showed  himself  to  be  animated  by  its  spirit.  The 
solid  profits  to  be  gained  by  war,  whether  just  or  unjust, 
were  as  little  obscured  in  his  mind  by  the  glamour  of 
military  glory  as  in  that  of  any  diplomatic  huckster  of 
the  century.  His  rule  was  despotic  to  a  degree  known 
only  by  Russia  among  European  nations.  Yet  he 
showed  himself  above  all  inspired  with  the  belief  that 
he  was  the  trustee  for  his  people,  that  it  was  for  his 
nation  that  he  worked,  and  that  in  his  nation  he  would 
find  the  only  worthy  and  enduring  success.  He  loved 
the  Russian  people,  says  Kostomdrof,  not  in  the  sense 
of  the  Russians  contemporary  with  and  subject  to  him, 
but  in  the  sense  of  that  ideal  to  which  he  wished  to 
bring  the  people.  To  his  soldiers  on  the  field  of  Pultava 
he  declared  that  they  were  fighting  for  Russia  and  not 
for  their  Tsar,  who  was  ready  to  sacrifice  his  life  for  his 
country's  weal.  And  when  caught  in  the  power  of  the 
Turkish  vizier  on  the  Pruth,  he  was  believed  to  have 


16  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

sent  a  letter  to  the  senate  at  home,  warning  its  members 
that  in  all  probability  he  would  be  taken  prisoner,  and 
peremptorily  forbidding  them  to  execute  any  command 
they  might  receive  purporting  to  come  from  him  in 
captivity.  This  letter  has  been  pronounced  a  forgery, 
but  its  extended  currency  at  least  demonstrates  the 
general  notion  entertained  of  Peter's  conception  of  his 
office.  Frederick  the  Great  only  confirmed  the  lesson 
embodied  by  the  legend,  when  from  his  camp  in  Silesia 
he  commanded  Podewils  that,  if  he  were  taken  alive, 
his  orders  were  not  to  be  respected,  and  the  State  should 
purchase  his  liberty  by  no  unworthy  means. 

General  Influence  of  Peter  on  Russia.  —  For 
Russia  itself,  Peter's  greatest  work  was  the  annihilation 
of  those  barriers  which  had  shut  out  the  country  from 
the  influences  of  European  civilization.  Contact  with 
the  West  was  his  prime  concern  and  his  most  fruitful 
achievement.  The  destruction  of  the  Streltsi — a  great 
advance,  though  the  reputation  of  these  irregular  troops 
has  suffered  much  injustice  from  their  resemblance  to 
the  Janissaries — his  administrative  reforms,  his  founda- 
tion of  a  system  of  popular  education,  his  transference 
to  the  Crown  of  the  power  of  the  patriarchate,  his 
endeavours  to  disseminate  knowledge,  and  his  attempt 
to  lay  upon  Slavic  barbarism  a  veneer  of  foreign 
manners,  would  have  wrought  but  little  had  the  country 
been  left  in  Muscovite  seclusion.  As  it  was,  Russia  did 
not  immediately  profit  to  any  great  extent  by  these 
internal  improvements.  The  force  of  the  conservative 
opposition  was  so  great  that  Peter's  reforms  would  have 
sunk  into  abeyance  on  the  removal  of  his  stern  will, 
unless  influences  from  abroad  had  continued  with  short 
intermissions  to  breathe  into  them  vital  energy.  When 
Peter  died,  the  empire  fell  into  the  hands  of  an  oligarchy 
tutored   by  the  example  of  Sweden  on  the  death  of 


MONARCHY  AS  A  REFORMER  17 

Charles  XII.  In  his  lifetime  Peter  found  it  impossible 
to  form  a  staff  of  honest  and  capable  agents  ;  and  when 
he  did  not  employ  foreigners,  he  had  to  depend  on 
terror  to  secure  the  execution  of  his  commands.  On  his 
death,  the  one  Russian  patriot  was  no  more.  All  hope 
of  further  progress  depended  on  the  operation  of  foreign 
civilization,  or  the  appearance  of  some  great  and  en- 
lightened successor. 

Peter's  Reign  and  Russian  Society.  —  On  the 
organization  of  classes,  Peter  left  a  deep  and  lasting 
impression.  Unfortunate  in  its  final  results,  his  action 
was  not  uniformly  beneficial  at  the  outset.  Indeed,  to 
the  serfs  his  legislation,  intent  on  rendering  the  resources 
of  the  country  more  available  to  the  Crown,  was,  on  the 
whole,  decidedly  detrimental.  In  some  cases  agrarian 
liberty  was  directly  subverted,  and  in  others  the  bonds- 
men of  the  soil  were  turned  into  personal  chattels.  On 
the  other  hand,  to  the  commercial  classes  he  was  a 
father.  From  him  the  urban  population  received  definite 
recognition  and  status,  and  industry  and  the  arts  first 
obtained  instruction  and  encouragement.  The  nobility 
he  placed  on  an  entirely  new  basis  and  imbued  with  a 
fresh  spirit.  Not  only  did  he  insist  upon  its  members 
acquiring  the  elements  of  education,  and  often  sent  the 
younger  ones  abroad  to  learn  arts  and  methods  unknown 
at  home,  but  he  converted  the  whole  order  from  an 
aristocracy  by  birth  into  a  hierarchy  by  service.  Under 
him  the  magnates  lost  their  exclusive  place,  the  princes 
and  Boyars  were  deprived  of  their  high  positions,  and  all 
the  nobles  were  invited,  or  rather  compelled,  to  become 
officials  of  their  Emperor,  and  to  obtain  their  rank  by 
the  dignity  of  their  office.  He  instituted  fourteen 
degrees  of  the  Tchin,  corresponding  to  the  grades  of 
military  rank,  which  were  repeated  in  the  civil  service, 
the  navy,  the  court,  and  the  Church.  Thus  rank  and 
c 


18  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

office  were  made  equivalents,  and,  though  the  rigour  of 
this  system  was  considerably  relaxed  during  succeeding 
reigns,  the  members  of  the  noble  caste  were  lastingly 
enlisted  in  the  service  of  the  modern  state. 

Uncertain  Results  of  Peter's  Reign. — Hence  it 
came  about  that  the  upper  classes  of  Russian  society 
were  drawn  with  wonderful  rapidity  into  the  vortex  of 
European  civilization,  while  the  bulk  of  the  people 
remained  almost  stationary.  Chained  to  the  soil  and 
service  of  superiors,  the  Russian  boors  were  cut  off  from 
all  access  to  the  West ;  the  traders  pursued  their  calling, 
unharassed  by  the  difficulties  of  the  Archangel  route, 
and  slowly  drew  through  the  Baltic  the  advantages  of 
intercourse  with  more  advanced  nations ;  the  nobility, 
persuaded  to  renounce  territorial  importance,  sought 
honourable  employment  by  thronging  the  government 
service,  and  strove  to  shine  by  assuming  the  semblance 
of  European  culture.  Over  the  result  to  which  this 
arrangement  has  been  moving  obscurity  still  hangs,  and 
seems  to  grow  denser  and  yet  more  dense. 

Comparison  between  Peter  and  Frederick  II. — 
In  no  way  does  Peter's  connection  with  European 
progress  show  itself  more  plainly  than  in  the  affinity 
of  his  career  to  that  of  the  monarch  who  was  most 
deeply  engaged  in  bringing  to  a  focus  the  tendencies  of 
the  time.  From  Peter  the  Great  it  is  natural  to  pass  to 
Frederick  II.  of  Prussia.  In  the  work  of  both  men, 
sternness  of  character  combined  with  quick  intelligence, 
unscrupulousness  allied  with  devotion  to  the  aggrandise- 
ment of  their  states,  application  to  business  supported 
by  a  cruel  disposition  towards  war  as  its  instrument, 
are  characteristics  so  prominent  that  the  history  of  the 
one  inevitably  suggests  that  of  the  other.  Above  all, 
both,  though  despotic,  were  conscious  of  the  ministering 
nature  of  their  office.     But  the  primary  conditions  of 


MONARCHY  AS  A  REFORMER  19 

their  careers  were  different.  Peter,  by  his  sole  exertions, 
compelled  a  vast  empire  to  enter  irrevocably  into  the 
fertilizing  medium  of  European  civilization.  Frederick 
was  but  the  most  brilliant  member  of  a  house  whose 
renown  it  is  to  have  created,  by  strenuous  and  repeated 
personal  exertions,  a  powerful  and  influential  state  out 
of  a  small  and  barren  province.  There  were  Hohen- 
zollerns  who  had  done  all  that  man  could  do  to  increase 
the  extent  and  importance  of  Brandenburg  before 
Frederick  II.  raised  the  kingdom  of  Prussia  to  be  the 
rival  of  the  House  of  Hapsburg.  Yet,  if  he  cannot  share 
with  Peter  I.  the  dignity  of  having  given  Europe  a  new 
state,  he  at  any  rate  deserves  the  fame  of  having  so  far 
completed  the  work  of  his  forefathers  as  to  have  assured 
to  Prussia  a  commanding  future  without  requiring  from 
his  successors  more  than  the  usual  prudence  and  com- 
mon sense  of  his  family.  He  was,  moreover,  the  central 
figure  among  the  rulers  of  his  time  no  less  by  reason  of 
his  intellectual  activity  and  personal  opinions  than  by 
reason  of  his  success  in  war  and  politics. 

Relation  of  Frederick  II.  (1748-86)  to  the  In- 
tellectual Movement. — We  may,  indeed,  search  in 
vain  the  life  of  the  semi-civilized  Tsar  for  parallels  to 
much  which  made  the  career  of  the  philosopher  of 
Sans-souci  important  for  Europe.  His  country  was 
already  a  sharer  in  the  general  fund  of  European 
culture,  and  he  himself  was  in  closest  connection  with 
the  spirit  of  the  age.  An  aspirant  to  literary  fame, 
delighting  in  the  society  of  the  writers  of  the  day,  and 
thoroughly  informed  with  French  taste  and  ideas,  he 
commanded  the  attention  of  his  generation  in  the  great 
world-debate  that  was  then  going  on  almost  as  effectu- 
ally as  he  dictated  terms  to  it  in  diplomacy  and  war. 
Through  him  the  doctrines  of  enlightenment,  charged 
with   official    authority,   addressed   themselves    to   the 


20  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

intellect  of  society,  while  his  deeds  supported  them  to 
its  coarser  elements.  From  his  pen,  through  his  pre- 
cept, by  his  example,  the  truth  that  the  sovereign  is 
the  first  servant  of  the  state  gained  notoriety  and 
associations  which  it  has  not  lost  to  this  day. 

"Friedrich  II.,"  says  Bluntschli,  "ist  in  Wahrheit 
nicht  bloss  der  Begriinder  eines  neuen  Staatswesens, 
sondern  ebenso  der  erste  und  vornehmste  Reprasentant 
der  modernen  Staatsidee."  If  at  this  period  the  Prussian 
monarchy  had  not  exhibited  to  the  world  a  conspicuous 
example  of  success  attained  by  claiming  unlimited 
authority  for  government,  men  would  in  later  days  have 
put  less  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  mere  legislation  and 
administration.  More  powerful  still  was  the  effect  of 
the  general  report  to  which  his  words  and  doings  gave 
rise.  The  appearance  in  the  political  arena  of  a  monarch 
whose  evident  mission  it  was  to  endorse  the  teaching  of 
speculative  liberalism,  acted  on  the  public  mind  as  a 
warrant  to  the  advanced  thinkers,  which  they  were  not 
slow  to  appreciate.  That  a  king  arose  who  was  merci- 
lessly severe  towards  shams  of  every  kind,  who  ruthlessly 
destroyed  whatever  withstood  his  designs  on  the  mere 
plea  of  respectable  antiquity,  who  was  full  of  bitter 
sayings  against  folly  and  vice  in  high  places  no  less  than 
against  effeteness  in  outworn  institutions,  was  an  event 
more  favourable  to  the  cause  of  reform  than  any  single 
episode  of  the  century,  if  we  except  the  independence 
of  America. 

Frederick  fails  to  keep  Pace  with  the  Time. — Yet 
Frederick  the  Great  was  far  from  embodying  fully  the 
progressive  spirit  of  the  age.  Cynical  by  nature,  em- 
bittered by  his  early  experiences,  he  learnt  to  treat  life 
with  a  grim  distrust  utterly  foreign  to  the  hopefulness 
which  was  about  to  animate  Europe.  The  period  of 
his    intellectual    formation   was,   unfortunately,   almost 


MONARCHY   AS   A   REFORMER  21 

synchronous  with  the  purely  sceptical  phase  of  the 
progressive  movement.  Consequently  he  remained  in- 
sensible to  those  spontaneous  efforts  towards  improve- 
ment of  which  society  was  then  giving  tokens.  He 
never  brought  himself  abreast  with  the  last  quarter  of 
the  century,  nor  did  he  understand  that  he  had  lost 
touch  with  the  times  through  want  of  sympathy  with 
men's  aspirations.  Before  he  died  he  had  yielded  his 
position  as  the  cynosure  of  Europe  to  Joseph  11.  of 
Austria. 

Personal  Character  of  Frederick's  Rule. — Long 
the  foremost  figure  in  Europe,  Frederick  was  yet  more 
prominent  in  his  own  state.  The  father,  who  had 
created  for  him  by  stolid  thrift  and  resolute  manage- 
ment the  army  and  funds  by  which  he  so  roughly 
elbowed  for  Prussia  an  eminent  place  in  Europe,  also 
left  him  a  system  of  administration  carefully  adapted 
for  the  personal  supervision  and  military  discipline  of 
the  whole  kingdom.  The  craze  of  Frederick  William 
for  drilling  soldiers  and  hoarding  money  was  not  a  whit 
more  intense  than  his  passion  for  driving  his  people  to 
their  work  and  keeping  them  employed  at  it  as  he 
thought  best  for  the  state.  In  one  sense  this  king 
was  as  much  the  founder  of  Prussia's  greatness  as  was 
the  Great  Elector.  If  the  latter  is  renowned  for  having 
raised  the  country  by  his  own  energy  and  ability  from 
the  dejection  into  which  the  Thirty  Years'  War  had 
cast  it,  the  former  equally  deserves  the  credit  of  having 
saved  the  state  from  the  debilitating  influences  imported 
by  the  first  Hohenzollern  who  called  himself  king,  and 
of  developing  in  his  people  the  virtues  of  obedience, 
industry,  and  economy.  These  contributed  at  least  as 
much  to  the  success  of  Frederick  the  Great  and  the 
aggrandisement  of  the  realm  as  did  the  activity  and 
adroitness  of  the  last  of  the  Electors  towards  its  being. 


m  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

The  effect  of  this  policy  was  the  more  considerable 
since,  in  the  words  of  Carlyle,  the  common  occupation 
of  other  rulers  at  that  time  was  to  play  "  burst-frog  to 
the  ox  of  Versailles."  This  Frederick  II.  fully  under- 
stood. He  was  too  much  imbued  with  the  ruling 
culture  to  appreciate  in  matters  of  the  mind  the  German 
character  and  the  possibilities  latent  within  its  unpolished 
exterior ;  but  he  relied  on  the  obedience  and  exertions 
of  his  subjects  to  a  degree  fatuous  in  one  less  acquainted 
with  the  Prussian  people.  And,  carrying  out  his  maxim 
of  a  sovereign's  duties,  he  developed  the  machinery  of 
his  father's  governing  system  till  he  held  in  his  own 
hands  the  threads  of  every  department  of  the  adminis- 
tration. By  him  the  Crown's  control  of  the  people  and 
its  manifold  responsibilities  were  so  much  extended  and 
isolated  that  his  successors,  who  were  of  less  kingly 
fibre,  only  escaped  utter  confusion  by  entirely  re- 
organizing the  Prussian  polity. 

Frederick's  Relation  to  Germany. — It  is  difficult 
to  form  a  conception  of  Frederick's  relation  to  the 
Germany  of  the  eighteenth  century.  At  that  time,  as 
every  one  knows,  the  holy  Roman  Empire  was  in  the 
last  stage  of  decay.  Divided  into  many  hundreds  of 
principalities,  varying  from  a  manor  to  an  independent 
power,  whose  sole  bond  of  union  was  a  constitution  of 
tedious  and  impotent  forms,  it  contained  within  itself 
all  the  elements  which  produce  anarchy,  misgovern- 
ment,  and  oppression.  Shaped  from  top  to  bottom  by 
feudal  tradition ;  unvisited  by  the  purging  hand  of 
power ;  demoralized  above  by  follies  and  vices  borrowed 
from  the  French  court,  and  deadened  below  by  the 
degraded  and  servile  condition  of  the  working  popula- 
tion ;  torn  by  the  jealousies  and  hostilities  inseparable 
from  petty  irresponsible  sovereignty ;  ever  ready  to 
listen  to  the  insidious  designs  of  treacherous  foreigners ; 


MONARCHY   AS   A   REFORMER  23 

— it  presented  a  spectacle  of  feebleness,  meanness,  and 
deformity  which  provoked  the  contempt  and  excited 
the  rapacity  of  all  beholders.  Among  the  rulers  of  such 
a  corrupt  mass  the  presence  of  a  man  like  Frederick 
the  Great  could  only  arouse  apprehension  and  hatred. 
Among  the  people  themselves  the  hardships  he  inflicted 
on  his  subjects  produced  abhorrence,  while  the  arro- 
gance of  the  Prussian  soldiery  and  officials  inflamed  the 
dislike  which  plentifully  subsisted  between  the  different 
fractions  of  the  German  nation. 

Effect  of  Frederick's  Career  on  the  Empire. — Nor 
was  the  external  policy  of  Frederick  calculated  to 
moderate  such  feelings.  To  probity  it  made  no  pre- 
tension, and  however  palliated  to  posterity  by  extenuat- 
ing circumstances,  it  was  to  contemporaries  violent  and 
perfidious.  Comprehensively  regarded,  his  career  would 
have  had  the  effect  of  rousing  the  people  from  their 
torpor  and  of  reminding  them  that  the  days  of  great 
deeds  and  national  reforms  had  not  passed  away  for 
ever.  But  views  of  this  kind  were  then  as  foreign  to 
the  mass  of  Germans  as  was  the  single  idea  that  it  was 
this  state  of  Prussia,  thus  elevated  by  Frederick,  which 
would  some  day  be  the  main  agent  in  Germany's  re- 
generation. Still,  one  act  of  direct  benefit  Frederick 
clearly  did  for  Germany.  He  brought  the  rottenness 
of  the  Reich  into  such  rough  contact  with  the  real 
conditions  of  things  as  had  never  been  known  before. 
He  helped  more  to  overthrow  the  crumbling  old  insti- 
tution than  did  any  other  person  except  Napoleon. 
Nevertheless,  this  same  man  was  eventually  forced  by 
the  ambition  of  a  scion  of  the  House  of  Austria  to  call 
upon  the  empire  to  defend  itself  against  impious  attack 
and  arbitrary  consolidation. 

Unscrupulous  Character  of  Joseph  II — It  was  the 
Emperor  Joseph  II.  who  drove   the  old   Frederick   to 


24  HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

this  paradoxical  proceeding.  Frederick  was  aware  that 
the  Emperor  was  filled  with  that  unreasoning  greed  for 
territorial  aggrandisement  which  was  then  the  dominant 
motive  in  European  politics.  To  his  cynical  mind  the 
aggressive  and  unscrupulous  side  of  Joseph's  character 
was  the  most  apparent.  Because  Joseph  was  unsuccess- 
ful in  his  enterprises,  and  was  withal  not  the  man  to 
command  success  under  any  circumstances,  history  has 
forborne  to  expose  quite  nakedly  how  deeply  he  was 
involved  in  the  unvirtuous  statecraft  of  his  time.  Yet 
it  would  appear  that  he  was  as  little  averse  to  diplo- 
matic knavery  and  unjust  violence  as  that  rival  whose 
great  success  with  those  means  has  earned  a  dispro- 
portionate amount  of  vituperation.  This  was  abundantly 
manifest  in  Joseph's  foreign  policy  ;  and  his  innovations 
in  his  hereditary  dominions  betrayed  so  frequently  an 
eagerness  to  concentrate  into  his  own  hands  all  the 
available  forces  of  the  monarchy  that  no  room  was  left 
for  doubt  as  to  the  primary  motive  of  the  whole  scheme. 
Not  reluctance,  therefore,  to  resort  to  the  political  strategy 
of  a  faithless  and  arbitrary  age  distinguishes  Joseph 
from  the  rest  of  the  ambitious  monarchs  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  Failure  alone  softens  that  glare  of 
censorious  criticism  which  beats  upon  him  in  common 
with  all  the  despotic  forerunners  of  the  present  order. 

Joseph's  Philanthropic  Impulses. — On  the  other 
hand,  he  was  representative  of  his  generation  in  a  far 
more  favourable  sense.  Though  he  wrote  no  "Anti- 
machiavel,"  or  "  Fiirstenspiegel,"  as  did  Frederick,  nor 
compounded  a  medley  of  philosophical  opinions  such 
as  was  published  by  Catherine  II.,  what  expression  he 
did  give  to  his  principles  of  reform  succeeded  in  enlist- 
ing a  belief  in  his  sincere  solicitude  for  mankind  which 
the  world  never  entertained  of  contemporary  rulers,  and 
which  the  world  would  not  have  accepted  of  this  man 


MONARCHY  AS  A   REFORMER  25 

if  he  had  been  merely  a  time-serving  hypocrite.  Doubt- 
less the  evident  connection  between  the  causes  of  his 
failure  and  his  uncircumspect  philanthropic  tempera- 
ment has  evoked  a  tendency  to  dwell  on  this  pleasanter 
aspect  of  his  character ;  doubtless,  too,  even  when  thus 
charitably  regarded,  his  conduct  shows  itself  only 
secondarily  governed  by  generous  impulse.  Still,  we 
must  believe  that  he  did  indeed  reflect  the  nobler 
sentiments  which  visited  society  towards  the  close  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  but  which  we  are  too  prone  to 
ignore  when  we  apply  to  the  period  our  rude  test  by 
results. 

Joseph's  Disappointments. — Consequently,  though 
Joseph  died  filled  with  chagrin  and  deeply  sensible  of 
his  ill  success,  he  was  not  without  the  poor  reward  of 
posthumous  fame.  By  cruel  chance,  misfortune  com- 
pletely blighted  the  latter  days  of  his  existence,  and  no 
whisper  of  posterity's  extenuating  verdict  reached  the 
dying  man.  He  never  knew  that  the  disappointments 
which  overwhelmed  him  would  serve  to  give  additional 
proof  of  his  sincerity  to  a  world  whose  pitiless  con- 
demnation of  failure  is  ever  tempered  by  compassion 
for  disaster.  And  seldom  is  clemency  better  bestowed 
than  on  the  memory  of  this  erring  and  chastened 
monarch.  Rash  in  conception,  rash  in  action,  he  was 
also  rash  in  withdrawing  his  ill-fated  decrees ;  but  im- 
petuosity does  not  alone  account  for  the  heart-broken 
abnegation  of  his  schemes.  There  was  something  of 
true  pathos  in  his  resolution  of  January,  1790,  in  which 
he  confessed  that,  having  introduced  changes  in  the 
administration  purely  with  the  intention  of  furthering 
the  general  weal,  and  with  the  hope  that  the  people, 
after  closer  acquaintance,  would  approve  of  them,  he 
had  at  length  become  convinced  that  the  people  pre- 
ferred the  old  conditions,  and  found  in  them  their  whole 


26  HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

happiness.  "Accordingly,"  he  continued,  "I  yield  to 
their  wishes,  and  declare  the  administrative  order  which 
obtained  at  my  accession  to  be  restored."  * 

Joseph's  Influence  on  Austria's  History. — But 
such  a  catastrophe  did  not  involve  total  loss  of  per- 
manent result.  It  is  true  that  the  retractations  of  Joseph 
had  to  be  confirmed  and  extended  by  his  successor, 
the  wise  and  enlightened  Leopold  II.  It  is  true  that 
the  Austro-Hungarian  monarchy  started  on  its  nine- 
teenth century  career  from  a  point  little  more  elevated 
than  that  attained  by  Maria  Theresa.  To  the  lessons 
which  the  great  queen  learnt  from  the  example  of 
Prussia,  to  her  humanity,  her  high  estimate  of  educa- 
tion and  her  disciplined  piety,  to  her  appreciation  of 
her  husband's  financial  abilities  and  the  wisdom  of  her 
better  advisers,  was  due  much  of  the  administrative  and 
military  efficiency,  the  agrarian  and  fiscal  improvement, 
the  advances  in  industry  and  education,  the  freedom 
from  ecclesiastical  dominion,  which  the  monarchy  en- 
joyed at  the  beginning  of  this  epoch.  Nevertheless, 
abortive  as  were  most  of  Joseph's  innovations,  they 
materially  contributed  towards  the  defeudalization  of 
the  lands  of  the  Hapsburgs,  to  the  emancipation  of  the 
people  from  the  yoke  of  the  nobility  and  priesthood, 
and  to  their  advancement  in  knowledge  and  toleration 
as  well  as  in  physical  well-being.  Moreover,  while  the 
reaction  against  Joseph's  policy  was  the  main  cause  of 
that  unprofitable  delay  in  Austria's  development  which 
supervened  on  the  accession  of  Francis  II.,  it  is  to 
Joseph  that  all  subsequent  desire  for  progress  must  be 
traced.     Insomuch  as  he  failed,  he  failed   because  he 

*  Hence  the  currency  of  the  term  "Josephism"  is  to  be  deprecated. 
The  word  connotes  nothing  peculiar  to  Joseph  II.  His  methods  were 
only  the  methods  of  his  age.  But  his  fate  was  all  his  own,  and  this  is 
just  what  the  expression  "  Josephism  "  does  not  include. 


MONARCHY  AS  A  REFORMER  27 

was  premature.  A  time  came  when  unreadiness  gave 
way  before  the  influence  of  the  modern  spirit.  The 
germ  of  this  spirit  Joseph  cast  into  his  dominions. 
From  him  dates  the  growth  of  that  liberalism  which 
eventually  leavened  the  stolid  conservatism  of  the 
Austrian  empire. 

Persistence  of  Foreign  Influences  in  Russia. — As 
it  was  in  Russia  that  the  first  great  liberal  monarch  of 
the  century  appeared,  so  it  was  there  that  the  last  was 
found.  After  the  death  of  Peter  I.  the  government  of 
the  country  passed  through  many  vicissitudes,  but  as 
change  followed  change  we  look  in  vain  for  the 
patriotism  and  energy  of  the  great  Tsar.  Not  a  trace 
of  any  agent  but  personal  and  party  interest  is  to  be 
seen  controlling  the  formation,  life,  and  dissolution  of 
the  numerous  governments.  The  chief  nobles  con- 
tinually sought  to  make  the  constitution  a  virtual 
oligarchy  by  contriving  that  the  wearer  of  the  crown 
should  by  some  means  or  other  be  held  under  their 
influence.  The  sovereigns,  conscious  of  their  faulty 
titles,  and  apprehensive  of  treasonable  conspiracies, 
were  ever  obliged  to  strain  to  the  utmost  Peter's  auto- 
cratic principles,  and  to  surround  themselves  with  a 
crowd  of  servile  favourites.  In  fact,  up  to  the  reign  of 
Alexander  I.  the  main  business  of  the  Russian  autocrats 
was  the  maintenance  of  their  absolute  power.  Still, 
though  all  constitutional  progress  was  thus  prevented, 
things  did  not  remain  wholly  stationary.  The  sovereigns 
were  always  more  foreign  than  Russian,  and  their 
sympathies  prompted  them  to  have  foreigners  for  their 
trusted  servants.  The  encroaching  spirit  of  the  magnates 
of  the  nation  made  it  clearly  safer  policy  for  them  to 
put  their  confidence  in  adventurers  from  abroad  than  to 
surrender  themselves  to  the  problematical  loyalty  of 
their  more  considerable  subjects.    As  Peter  had  learnt 


28  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

most  from  the  Dutch,  so  his  successors  sought  chief 
guidance,  first  from  the  Germans,  and  later  from  the 
French. 

Reign  of  Catherine  II.  (1762-96). — At  the  date  of 
which  we  now  speak,  Catherine  II.  was  bringing  to  a 
close  a  long  and  brilliant  reign.  A  foreigner  of  in- 
significant origin,  and  a  usurper,  she  had  striven  to 
make  herself  popular  by  calling  herself  Russian.  Yet 
she  was  never  either  Russian  or  popular.  Her  colossal 
ambition,  alike  in  its  beneficent  and  pernicious  activity, 
defeated  this  result.  By  her  military  enterprises  she 
laid  on  the  people  all  the  burdens  which  attend  a  policy 
of  conquest.  In  her  endeavours  to  win  the  applause 
of  Europe  by  posing  as  an  enlightened  ruler,  she  neces- 
sarily ran  counter  to  what  Russians  regarded  as  their 
traditional,  though  long  mistreated,  regime.  Her  own 
force  of  character,  however,  and  her  good  fortune,  pre- 
served the  power  she  failed  to  fortify  with  the  affections 
of  her  people.  The  memory  of  the  glories  of  her  reign 
long  outlived  the  regrets  of  which  they  were  the 
occasion. 

Nature  of  Catherine's  Liberalism. — When  Russians 
consent  to  remember  only  the  agreeable  in  Catherine's 
reign,  they  can  at  least  plead  the  desire  to  leave  undis- 
turbed the  accepted  sequel  to  the  work  of  Peter  the 
Great.  The  empress  claimed  to  be  Peter's  successor, 
and  the  claim  has  secured  general  assent.  Her  pre- 
tensions are  far  from  being  entirely  justified,  yet  they 
possess  enough  foundation  to  warrant  homage  from  the 
national  imagination.  Destitute  of  the  grander  features 
of  Peter's  character,  and  incomparably  inferior  to  him 
in  the  power  of  controlling  and  training  her  rude 
subjects,  she,  the  educated,  lettered  German,  equally 
excelled  him  in  her  taste  for  literature  and  her  support 
of  advanced  ideas.     But  her  patronage  of  liberalism  and 


MONARCHY  AS   A  REFORMER  29 

culture  must  not  be  over-rated.  Ambition  formed  its 
principal  motive.  She  knew  that  lasting  fame  was  to 
be  obtained  only  at  the  hands  of  the  thinkers  and 
writers  who  had  challenged  the  attention  of  the  Western 
world,  and  she  therefore  strove  to  gain  their  approval, 
and  even,  womanlike,  their  adulation.  To  suppose  that 
she  was  a  deliberate  promoter  of  the  revolution  which 
was  overtaking  European  civilization  would  be  incon- 
sistent with  her  conduct  in  later  years.  Her  professed 
antipathy  to  the  French  Revolution  may  in  some  degree 
be  accounted  for  by  her  wish  to  embroil  the  other 
Powers  in  a  war  with  France,  in  order  that  she  might 
have  her  hands  the  more  free  to  carry  out  certain  very 
dear  but  iniquitous  plans  of  her  own  in  Poland.  It  is 
not  doubtful  that,  even  if  her  anxiety  to  further  the 
freedom  and  welfare  of  the  people  were  as  intense  as 
her  staunchest  upholders  may  contend,  she  never 
seriously  thought  of  assisting  in  the  work,  except  by 
the  methods  of  despotism.  The  story  of  her  Duma, 
gathered  from  the  four  corners  of  all  the  Russias,  did 
good  service  to  her  fame  at  the  time,  but  the  year-long 
farce  soon  lost  its  plausibility,  and  is  now  only  cited  to 
her  discredit. 

Nature  of  Catherine's  Despotism. — Catherine  was 
indeed,  a  despot  by  nature  and  force  of  circumstances. 
Yet  she  had  a  wide  enough  view  and  a  strong  enough 
hold  of  facts  not  to  forget  that  the  most  absolute 
authority  is  dependent  on  the  disposition  of  the  multi- 
tude. But  in  practice  this  attenuated  form  of  liberalism 
was  sorely  mutilated  by  the  evil  consequences  of  her 
personal  faults.  It  was  not  alone  her  imperious  foibles 
that  thwarted  her  better  views.  Her  rule,  unfortunately, 
was  almost  entirely  determined  by,  or  conducted 
through,  those  favourites  whom  she  attached  to  herself 
with  all  the  prodigality  of  an  oriental  monarch,  and 


30  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

multiplied  with  the  profusion  meet  for  an  empress  in  an 
age  conspicuous  for  female  frailty.  In  this  manner, 
much  perfidy  and  brutality  was  imported  into  her 
actions,  with  which  she  cannot  be  directly  charged. 
But  vicarious  responsibility  of  this  kind  forms  a  poor 
defence  for  a  woman  of  the  understanding  of  Catherine. 
When  all  excuses  on  this  score  have  been  allowed,  her 
ambition,  with  all  its  attendant  wickedness  and  cruelty, 
still  remains  unrelieved  by  nobility  of  purpose  or 
genuine  humanity. 

Catherine  as  the  Successor  of  Peter. — Though 
Catherine  grievously  missed  being  Peter's  peer,  she 
succeeded  in  giving  Russia  a  natural  complement  to 
Peter's  innovations.  The  purport  of  her  wars  was  very 
different  from  that  of  his  ;  the  changes  introduced  by 
her  departed  in  spirit  far  from  his  disinterested  reforms. 
Happily,  ambition  to  follow  a  patriot's  example  cannot 
avoid  achieving  something  very  like  the  results  of 
patriotism.  Under  her  rule  no  great  legislative  measure 
was  inflicted  upon  the  Russian  people.  That  reform 
which  would  have  won  for  her  the  loudest  praise  from 
her  literary  friends,  the  emancipation  of  the  serfs,  was 
not  to  be  carried  by  one  who  was  a  foreigner,  a 
usurper,  and  a  female.  This  being  impracticable,  she 
found  it  convenient,  as  Peter  less  unwittingly  had  done 
before  her,  to  increase  the  area  and  rigour  of  serfage. 
The  commercial,  industrial,  and  intellectual  progress  of 
Russia  gained  much  from  her  long  reign.  The  power 
of  the  Church  was  further  diminished  by  confiscations  of 
its  property,  works  of  philanthropy  were  undertaken, 
the  administration  of  justice  was  improved.  But  it  was 
no  more  given  to  her  to  extract  a  code  of  law  out  of  the 
legal  confusion  of  her  realm,  than  to  extirpate  the 
corruption  which  infested  every  branch  of  the  imperial 
service. 


i 


MONARCHY   AS  A  REFORMER  31 

Catherine's  Influence  on  the  Nobility. — Most 
noticeable,  perhaps,  was  Catherine's  agency  in  civilizing 
the  nobility.  It  was  during  her  reign  that  the  social 
usages  and  culture  of  civilized  Europe,  which  had  been 
seeking  admittance  for  the  last  century,  finally  estab- 
lished themselves  at  the  Russian  court,  and  their 
domicile  on  the  Neva  grew  into  a  fine  and  well-built 
town.  The  results  of  this  exotic  cultivation  were  at 
first  naturally  superficial,  and  in  many  respects  long 
remained  so.  They  have,  moreover,  greatly  tended  to 
exaggerate  the  distance  between  the  noble  caste  and  the 
common  people,  and  have  thus  helped  to  produce  that 
estrangement  of  classes  which  has  sadly  hampered  the 
good  influence  of  educated  persons,  and  narrowly 
limited  the  range  of  education  itself.  But  the  downfall 
of  Muscovite  barbarism,  and  the  acceptance  of  a  more 
generous  and  universal  civilization  in  the  upper  stratum 
of  Russian  society,  was  an  indispensable  condition  for 
the  imposing  entrance  into  the  politics  of  Europe  which 
Russia  made  at  the  beginning  of  the  next  century, 
under  the  guidance  of  Catherine's  mobile  grandson. 

Reform  by  the  Lesser  Monarchies. — Thus  far  re- 
forming absolutism  flowed  directly  from  the  main 
depositaries  of  monarchical  power.  Autocrats  them- 
selves planned  and  wrought,  using  agents  only  as 
instruments  to  the  ends  which  they  themselves  con- 
ceived. But  it  was  impossible  for  the  most  powerful 
monarchs  alone  to  profit  by  the  lessons  of  the  progressive 
movement,  when  the  advanced  party  held  the  ear  of  the 
public  and  compelled  it  to  harken  to  the  new  doctrines. 
That  other  rulers  of  less  degree  should  participate  in 
the  general  diffusion  of  reforming  energy,  and  play  in 
their  more  limited  spheres  similar  parts,  was  clearly  inevit- 
able. Accordingly,  alongside  of  the  great  monarchs, 
we  find  the  inferior  sovereigns  and  the  administrators 


S2  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

of  delegated  power  taking  an  active  share  in  the  work 
of  national  redemption. 

Pombal's  Ministry  in  Portugal  (1750-77). — The 
overthrow  of  the  Jesuits,  that  deed  which  moved  Europe 
more  deeply  than  any  other  event  before  the  Revolution, 
was  chiefly  the  work  of  the  minister  of  one  of  the  most 
insignificant  states  of  Europe,  the  remote  and  feeble 
Portugal.  The  circumstance  is  the  more  remarkable 
because,  uninfluential  as  Portugal  naturally  is  by 
position  and  resources,  it  was  still  less  considerable  at 
this  time  by  reason  of  its  backward  condition.  But 
when  the  government  of  the  state  seemed  to  be  sinking 
irretrievably  into  monkish  darkness  and  slothful  extra- 
vagance, it  passed  into  the  hands  of  a  bold,  arbitrary 
reformer,  one  of  the  most  imposing  personages  of  the 
century,  Sebastian  Joseph  de  Carvalho  e  Mello, 
Minister  of  Joseph  I.,  celebrated  as  the  Marquis  of 
Pombal. 

Pombal  and  the  Earthquake  of  Lisbon. — Carvalho 
had  been  imbued  with  the  new  political  doctrines  by 
study  and  by  extensive  acquaintance  with  the  life  of 
the  leading  European  states.  The  opportunity  to  carry 
his  ideas  into  practice  was  given  him  by  the.  queen- 
mother.  But  to  his  own  powerful  character  was  due  the 
vast  predominance  which  he  obtained  in  the  conduct  of 
the  government.  By  his  personal  weight  he  made  the 
king  blindly  subservient  to  his  will,  ousted  the  Jesuits 
from  political  influence,  and  spread  terror  through  the 
corrupt  and  parasitic  nobility.  On  the  occasion  of  the 
great  earthquake  in  1755,  amid  the  inundations,  ruin, 
and  conflagration  to  which  Lisbon  was  abandoned,  he 
alone  confronted  the  awful  catastrophe  with  unshaken 
spirit.  Then,  in  truth,  he  showed  himself  the  man, 
whom,  "si  fractus  illabatur  orbis,  impavidum  ferient 
ruinse."     Ultimately  through  his  efforts  a  finer,  richer, 


MONARCHY  AS  A   REFORMER  S3 

and  healthier  Lisbon  was  erected  on  the  ashes  of  the 
old.* 

Pombal's  Successful  Reforms. — Established  in 
his  supreme  position,  Pombal  applied  himself  with 
unexampled  energy  to  the  work  of  fortifying  the 
independence  and  developing  the  resources  of  his 
country.  He  found  it  destitute  of  money,  defensive 
power,  and  industry.  He  left  it  at  the  end  of  a  ministry, 
lasting  a  quarter  of  a  century,  with  full  coffers,  with 
a  militia  which  had  proved  its  worth  by  honourable  and 
successful  service  under  foreign  officers  of  experience, 
and  with  advancing  agriculture,  new  and  revived  indus- 
tries, and  a  flourishing  trade.  He  had  the  satisfaction 
of  freeing  his  country  from  dependence  on  the  foreigner 
for  necessities,  without  diminishing  the  influx  of  treasure 
from  America.  To  no  work  did  he  devote  himself  with 
greater  ardour  than  to  the  task  of  replacing  the  educa- 
tional system  of  his  defeated  foes,  the  Jesuits.  When  his 
king  died,  however,  the  aged  minister  was  disgraced. 
Persecuted  with  false  accusations  by  the  many  and 
powerful  enemies  he  had  made  in  the  course  of  his 
uncompromising  career,  he  saw  a  reactionary  regime 
almost  wreck  the  work  of  his  arduous  life. 

Pombal's  Conflict  with  the  Jesuits. — That  Pom- 
bal, with  his  impatient  arbitrary  temperament,  should 
be  harsh  even  to  tyranny  was  inevitable.  To  the 
Jesuits  he  dealt  out  the  strongest  measure  of  his  rigour. 
The  fathers  bitterly  hated  him  as  their  godless  sup- 
planter  in  the  government,  they  provoked  him  by 
attributing  the  earthquake  to  his  unhallowed  policy,  and 
they  incited  the  populace  to  riot  against  his  decrees. 

•  Pompal's  reply  to  the  lamentations  of  the  trembling  king  on  this 
occasion  is  well  known.     When  asked  what  was  to  be  done  under  this 
infliction  of  Divine  justice,  he  answered,  "  Bury  the  dead  and  attend  to  the 
living  "  (gnterrar  os  mortos^  e  aiidar  nos  vivos), 
D 


34  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

Finally,  the  Company  of  Jesus  exasperated  him  beyond 
endurance  by  creating  a  rebellion  among  the  Indians  in 
Paraguay,  when  Portugal  proceeded  to  take  possession 
of  certain  provinces  which  Spain  had  transferred  to  it  in 
pursuance  of  an  exchange  agreed  upon  by  the  two 
governments. 

Degeneration  of  the  Jesuits. — This  was,  perhaps, 
the  most  audacious  act  upon  which  the  Jesuits  ever 
ventured ;  but  it  was  in  only  too  exact  conformity  with 
the  general  conduct  which  had  come  to  be  characteristic 
of  Loyola's  order.  They  were  now  in  the  midst  of  the 
most  worldly  phase  of  their  existence.  To  their  political 
enterprises  they  had  added  extensive  commercial  under- 
takings, and  to  their  notoriously  flexible  casuistry  they 
had  fitted  very  equivocal  principles  of  proselytism.  But 
their  fall  was  near.  Though  powerful  at  the  courts,  and 
possessed  of  immense  wealth,  they  had  justly  incurred 
the  jealousy  of  the  people  and  the  restless  hostility  of 
the  whole  free-thinking  party.  They  could  retain  their 
power  only  so  long  as  their  political  influence  was 
unassociated  with  disaster,  only  so  long  as  their  patrons 
remained  unmoved  by  the  intellectual  forces  which  were 
undermining  the  traditional  system.  And  just  as  the 
courts  became  permeated  with  the  new  ideas,  the  two 
Jesuit  strongholds  at  Vienna  and  Versailles  received  a 
severe  shock  in  an  unsuccessful  conflict  with  the  two 
great  Protestant  powers,  Prussia  and  England. 

Expulsion  of  the  Jesuits  from  Portugal. — The 
first  state  in  which  their  polity  was  attacked  and  their 
presence  prohibited  was,  however,  one  in  no  way  con- 
cerned in  the  Seven  Years*  War,  and  was  one  whose 
independence  and  dynasty  they  had  originally  done 
very  much  to  establish,  namely,  the  realm  of  the  Bra- 
ganzas.  There  Pombal's  advent  to  power  brought  them 
summary  expulsion.     Not  content  with  dismissing  the 


MONARCHY   AS   A   REFORMER  35 

fathers  from  attendance  at  court,  and  lodging  complaints 
against  the  society's  mercantile  undertakings,  he  seized 
on  their  alleged  complicity  in  an  attempt  to  assassinate 
the  king  as  a  pretext  to  banish  them  from  the  Portu- 
guese dominions.  With  no  regard  to  their  comfort  or 
their  future,  he  pitilessly  arrested  all  members  of  the 
order,  dangerous  and  harmless  alike,  and  despatched 
them  to  Italy,  where  they  endured  considerable  hard- 
ship before  they  found  accommodation. 

The  Brief,  "  Dominus  ac  Redemptor  Noster," 
1773. — In  France  matters  followed  much  the  same 
course  as  in  Portugal.  Bad  fortune,  added  to  the 
hostility  of  Madame  de  Pompadour  and  Choiseul, 
deprived  them  of  their  influence  at  court.  An  exposure 
of  their  regulations  in  the  course  of  a  commercial  law- 
suit convinced  the  public  that  the  society  must  submit 
to  some  reform  if  it  were  to  continue  to  operate  in 
France  without  detriment  to  the  civil  power.  The 
general  of  the  order,  however,  replied  to  a  demand  for 
a  change  in  the  constitution  of  the  French  Jesuits  with 
the  well-known  answer,  "  Sint  ut  sunt,  aut  non  sint " — 
an  answer  eloquent  for  more  than  one  degenerate 
institution  of  that  time.  The  suppression  of  the  order 
duly  followed,  and  finally  its  members  were  banished 
from  the  country.  In  Spain,  too,  the  religious  but 
despotic  Charles  III.  was  led  to  regard  them  as  menac- 
ing to  his  authority,  and  on  their  exciting  seditious 
disturbances  against  the  reforms  of  his  minister  Squillace, 
they  were  sent  off  under  circumstances  still  more  cruel 
than  those  which  had  attended  their  banishment  from 
Portugal.  A  like  fate  overtook  them  in  Parma  and 
Naples,  and  they  even  lost  the  protection  of  Maria 
Theresa.  Only  in  the  dominions  of  the  heretical  King 
of  Prussia  and  in  orthodox  Russia  did  they  find  pro- 
tection.     Frederick  was  well  pleased  to  use  them  as 


36  HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

schoolmasters  when  their  power  was  broken,  and 
Catherine  gladly  seized  another  means  of  influence  in 
Catholic  Poland.  The  schism  continued  to  embarrass 
Catholicism  till  the  famous  brief  abolishing  the  order 
was  issued  in  the  pontificate  of  Clement  XIV. 

Reign  of  Charles  III.  in  Spain,  1759-88. — The 
man  to  whom  is  attributed  the  principal  part  in  induc- 
ing Clement  to  proceed  to  this  extremity  was  the 
Spanish  ambassador  Moiiino,  afterwards  known  as 
the  Count  of  Floridablanca.  And  his  conduct  on  this 
occasion  was  a  token  of  more  than  a  passing  motive  in 
the  diplomacy  of  Spain  at  Rome.  It  was,  indeed,  the 
expression  of  a  change  in  the  national  policy  at  Madrid. 
Floridablanca  was  foremost  of  several  who  at  this  time 
strove  to  restore  life  to  the  Spanish  monarchy,  and  to 
bring  the  country  more  on  a  level  with  the  rest  of 
Europe.  But  neither  to  the  well-meaning  king,  nor  to 
Floridablanca,  nor  to  Aranda,  nor  to  Campomanes  was 
granted  power  to  rouse  a  degenerate  and  priest-ridden 
people  to  live  only  for  its  better  self.  Monarchy  could 
not  at  once  undo  all  that  it  had  done  to  encourage  the 
vices  of  this  stiff-necked  race.  Notwithstanding  the 
fanatical  loyalty  of  his  subjects,  Charles  III.  failed  to 
secure  implicit  obedience  to  his  prudent  mandates  of 
reform.  The  more  vigorous  policy  of  his  ministers  was 
thwarted  by  the  opposition  of  the  clergy  and  the  national 
inertia.  Nevertheless,  this  reign  brought  the  country  to 
the  verge  of  social  reform,  as  it  had  tentatively  intro- 
duced it  to  political  progress.  Even  Godoy,  the 
despicable  minister-favourite  under  Charles  IV.,  was 
impelled  to  maintain  in  some  sort  its  tradition  by  real 
effort  on  behalf  of  intellectual  advance.  At  its  close 
a  well-founded  hope  in  the  nation's  power  of  spon- 
taneous advance  was  attained.  But  the  new  reign  and 
the  great  European  convulsion  dashed  all  these  hopes 


MONARCHY  AS   A   REFORMER  37 

to  the  ground.  Years  afterwards  Spain  had  to  begin 
anew,  and  under  pitiable  disadvantages,  that  work  of 
self- redemption  which  is  still  in  progress,  and  whose 
crude  and  chequered  course  has  caused  the  reign  of 
Charles  III.,  in  its  true  eighteenth-century  aspect,  to  be 
almost  entirely  disregarded. 

Charles'  Reign  in  Naples,  1735-59. — No  less  un- 
fortunate was  the  same  Charles'  earlier  reign  in  Naples. 
His  attempts  to  civilize  the  country  and  to  develop  its 
resources  were  rewarded  with  some  measure  of  success, 
and  were  meritoriously  extended  by  Tanucci,  whom  he 
left  at  the  head  of  the  regency  during  the  minority  of 
his  son  Ferdinand  IV.  Something  of  value  was  gained. 
The  barons  at  least  were  enticed  by  the  attractions  of 
the  court  from  exercising  an  armed  tyranny  over  the 
provinces,  and  some  of  their  most  invidious  prerogatives 
were  abolished.  Limits  were  set  to  the  power  and 
wealth  of  the  priesthood ;  the  papal  ordinances  were 
made  subordinate  to  the  royal  approval ;  and  the 
administration  of  justice  was  in  part  reformed.  The 
interests  of  commerce  were  attended  to,  and  many 
useful  public  works  were  executed.  But  no  portion  of 
the  time's  enlightened  principles  gained  permanent 
adoption  in  the  government,  whose  new  experience  of 
a  ruler's  care  was  soon  exchanged  for  the  worst  tyranny 
of  Bourbon  misrule. 

Spirit  of  Reform  in  Italy. — Yet  Italy  was  not 
without  a  part  in  the  new  movement.  In  Naples 
appeared  one  of  the  earliest  attacks  on  the  political 
power  of  the  Church  in  favour  of  the  absolute  sovereignty 
of  the  state.  This  was  the  book  of  Giannone,  whose 
influence  throughout  the  peninsula  was  of  very  con- 
siderable political  importance  in  determining  the  insub- 
ordinate attitude  of  different  states  towards  the  papal 
power.     Several  other  notable  works  of  liberal  meaning 


38  HISTORY  OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

might  be  enumerated  which  were  produced  by  Italy  in 
the  age  when  men  like  Beccaria,  Vico,  Genovesi,  and 
Filangieri  thought  and  wrote.  In  truth,  if  Italians 
subsequently  showed  themselves  ready  to  receive  the 
ideas  of  France,  it  was  only  because  they  had  diligently 
prepared  themselves  for  the  lessons  of  the  gospel  of 
progress.  Nor  did  the  governments  remain  indifferent 
to  what  was  going  on  around  them.  In  Tuscany,  under 
the  Grand  Duke  Leopold,  the  anomalous  distinctions 
which  separated  the  constituent  portions  of  the  duchy 
were  removed  by  introducing  uniformity  of  justice, 
taxation,  customs,  and  administration.  A  more  national 
and  less  sacerdotal  character  was  given  to  the  accepted 
Catholicism.  The  agrarian  system  was  amended,  and 
the  privileges  of  the  nobles  were  curtailed  ;  drainage 
works  and  like  improvements  were  undertaken,  and 
monopolies  were  subordinated  to  the  public  interest. 
But  to  all  this  was  not  wanting  that  foil  which,  in  some 
shape  or  other,  ever  accompanied  the  benevolent  action 
of  the  reforming  sovereigns.  Leopold  was  intent  upon 
doing  everything  for  his  people  in  a  paternal  manner. 
He  was  thus  led  to  develop  the  old  system  of  espionage 
into  the  police  engine,  which  was  the  most  vexatious 
heritage  bequeathed  to  the  Italians  of  the  last  century. 
Nor  did  that  part  of  Italy  which  was  immediately  under 
Austrian  dominion  escape  the  hand  of  reform.  Even 
the  papal  states  had  a  Pius  VI.  Only  in  the  aristo- 
cratic republics  did  the  new  tidings  pass  unheeded. 

Rule  of  the  House  of  Savoy  in  Piedmont. — 
Somewhat  grim  and  gloomy  was  the  form  which  the 
increased  activity  of  government  assumed  in  the  do- 
minions of  the  House  of  Savoy.  In  this  respect,  as 
in  so  many  others,  the  military  monarchy  which  was 
destined  to  conduct  the  contest  for  Italian  indepen- 
dence  and   unity   resembled   that    larger  soldier-state 


MONARCHY   AS   A   REFORMER  39 

which  fought  the  battle  of  German  freedom  and  con- 
solidation. Victor  Amadeus  II.,  the  founder  of  the 
kingdom,  was  not  inferior  to  the  Hohenzollerns  in  his 
efforts  to  strengthen  his  state  by  educating  the  people, 
and  slackening  the  bonds  of  superstition.  His  son, 
Charles  Emanuel  III.  (1730-73),  though  his  despotism 
brought  ruin  to  all  that  remained  of  constitutional 
freedom,  followed  a  like  policy,  and  further  centralized 
the  administration  and  reformed  the  feudal  tenures. 
But  in  both  reigns  the  difficulties  of  self-preservation 
necessitated  the  maintenance  of  a  burdensome  military 
force,  and  favoured  feudal  subordination  of  classes. 

Military  Character  of  Piedmont's  Polity. — In 
the  reign  of  Victor  Amadeus  HI.  (1773-96)  this 
aspect  of  military  monarchy  became  still  more  promi- 
nent. Self-defence  being  his  chief  concern,  the  king 
sought  to  make  the  Piedmontese  army  like  the  highly 
wrought  model  of  Prussia.  Thus  he  burdened  his  small 
state  with  exactions  which  it  could  ill  sustain  ;  and  he 
followed  the  pattern  system  so  closely  that  the  exclu- 
siveness  and  arrogance  of  the  nobility,  stronger  here 
than  anywhere  else  in  Italy,  was  encouraged  in  the 
same  pernicious  manner  as  in  Prussia.  But  in  both 
countries  habitual  subordination  of  classes  to  one 
another  and  to  the  royal  service  was  the  essential  con- 
dition which  enabled  the  sovereigns  to  overcome  the 
difficulties  that  were  strewn  around  their  nationalizing 
mission.  Though  attended  by  many  unpleasing  social 
consequences,  it  was  this  class  subordination  which 
enabled  the  two  peoples  to  support  the  trials  which 
they  encountered  as  champions  of  the  freedom  and 
brotherhood  of  their  kin. 

Monarchy  in  the  Scandinavian  States. — In  the 
Scandinavian  states  the  tendencies  and  vicissitudes  of 
European   state-life    of  the  monarchico-feudal    period 


40  HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

received  peculiarly  clear  illustration.  Here  prevailed 
later,  perhaps,  than  anywhere  except  in  Poland,  the 
worst  evils  which  the  feudal  order  left  in  the  way  of 
monarchy.  Here  the  Crown  engaged  at  closest  quarters 
with  the  nobility  in  behalf  of  its  own  power  and  the 
liberty  of  the  people ;  here  it  became  most  suddenly 
supreme,  and  founded  the  most  absolute  governments. 
In  open  day  the  position  of  the  nobles  was  subverted, 
and  the  sovereigns  were  entrusted  with  the  sole  charge 
of  the  people's  interests.  In  these  countries  was  epito- 
mized the  defeudalizing  process  which  dragged  out  to 
such  tedious  length  in  the  greater  part  of  Europe. 

The  Danish  Revolution. — In  Denmark  the  tran- 
sition from  the  feudal  to  the  monarchical  order  had 
been  summed  up  in  a  single  crisis,  and  effected  by  a 
bloodless  revolution  in  the  seventeenth  century.  Till 
then  the  king  had  practically  been  elected  by  the  noble 
families,  and  his  functions  had  been  restricted  and  per- 
verted by  the  stipulations  to  which  the  oligarchy 
habitually  forced  him  to  assent.  Conversely,  the 
nobility  had  enjoyed  the  most  extravagant  rights, 
privileges,  and  immunities.  The  Reformation,  else- 
where so  conducive  to  the  strengthening  of  civil  govern- 
ment, Had  only  increased  their  power  to  enslave  the 
people  and  rob  the  state.  By  hard  fortune  from  without, 
these  abuses  were  brought  to  a  speedy  termination. 
After  experiencing  a  severe  reverse  in  the  Thirty  Years' 
War,  Denmark  came  into  continual  and  disastrous 
collision  with  Sweden.  Twice  was  Copenhagen  be- 
leaguered ;  twice  was  it  saved  from  capture  by  the 
devotion  of  its  king,  Frederick  III.,  and  the  valour  of 
its  citizens.  On  the  conclusion  of  peace,  it  was  evident 
that  some  extraordinary  effort  was  necessary  to  save 
the  state  from  ruin.  In  September,  1660,  a  parlia- 
mentary assembly,  consisting  of  representatives  of  the 


MONARCHY   AS   A   REFORMER  41 

nobles,  clergy,  and  burghers  met  at  Copenhagen  to 
consider  the  means  to  be  employed.  The  peasantry, 
whose  right  to  be  represented  in  the  Parliament  was 
indefeasible,  had  been  brought  too  low  by  the  nobility 
to  put  in  an  appearance,  and  it  devolved  on  the 
burghers  and  clergy  to  defend  the  nation  from  the 
cupidity  of  the  privileged  classes.  The  refusal  of 
the  last  to  subject  themselves  to  the  operation  of  a 
general  excise  tax  occasioned  a  coalition  of  the  eccle- 
siastics and  citizens  against  the  valuable  monopoly, 
which  the  nobles  had  come  to  enjoy,  of  renting  the 
Crown  lands  at  a  nominal  rate.  The  contest  thus 
excited  soon  resolved  itself  into  an  agitation  for  the 
conversion  of  the  elective  sovereignty  into  a  hereditary 
monarchy. 

Monarchy  established  in  Denmark. — From  the 
first  the  nobles  were  overpowered  by  their  antagonists. 
They  were  unable  to  preserve  any  of  the  conditions 
they  had  imposed  upon  the  Crown  ;  nay,  they  were 
compelled  to  acquiesce  in  a  total  surrender  to  the  king 
of  the  work  of  forming  a  new  constitution.  Nobles, 
clergy,  burghers,  and  peasants  alike  empowered  the 
king  to  found  a  throne,  heritable  by  both  male  and 
female  descendants,  according  to  the  pattern  which  he 
thought  best  suited  to  the  country  and  the  existing 
institutions.  This  surrender  led  to  the  later  acceptance 
from  Christian  V.  of  the  Kongelov,  "  the  one  written 
law  in  the  civilized  world  which  fearlessly  carries  out 
absolutism  to  its  last  consequences."  And  Frederick  III., 
with  his  advisers,  proved  himself  not  unworthy  of  the 
responsibility.  Under  his  auspices  monarchy,  with  all 
mildness  and  caution,  purged  Denmark  in  a  few  years 
of  the  worst  feudal  evils,  which  in  most  other  countries 
were  partly  extirpated  by  a  protracted  contest,  and 
partly  lingered   under  the  protection   of  the   Crown. 


univer; 

OF 


42  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

And  the  newly  created  monarchy  was  equally  prompt 
to  assume  the  manners  and  semblance  of  European 
royalty.  Frederick's  successor,  Christian  V.,  by  help  of 
his  minister  Grififenfeldt,  lost  no  time  in  clothing  the 
throne  with  splendour  and  in  surrounding  it  with  a 
graduated  order  of  nobility.  Yet  further  went  Frederick 
IV.,  who  reigned  during  the  first  thirty  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  Along  with  an  increased  exercise 
of  his  prerogative,  this  king  manifested  a  true  zeal  for 
progress  and  enlightenment,  like  the  rest  of  the  more 
advanced  politicians  of  the  time.  Measures  were  taken 
in  favour  of  the  serfs  ;  education  received  attention  for 
the  first  time  ;  the  administration  and  finances  were 
managed  with  success ;  industry  was  encouraged  ;  and 
the  interests  of  commerce  were  regarded. 

The  Coup  d'etat  of  Gustavus  III.  in  Sweden, 
1772. — Far  less  summary  than  the  single  Danish  revo- 
tion  was  the  strife  by  which  Sweden  attained  to  true 
monarchical  government.  From  the  beginning  the 
kingdom  of  the  Vasas  was  reft  by  antagonism  between 
the  power  of  the  Crown  and  the  ambition  of  the  nobles  ; 
but  in  this  connection  we  can  only  advert  to  the  final 
act,  which  established  for  good  the  supremacy  of  the 
sovereign.  This  happened  as  late  as  the  reign  of 
Gustavus  III.  This  young  king  had  witnessed  in  his 
father's  reign  the  extremities  to  which  the  aristocratic 
factions  could  reduce  the  nation.  He  was  energetic  and 
arbitrary  in  temperament ;  he  was  convinced  of  the 
monarchical  principles  of  the  century,  and  desirous  of 
fulfilling  the  highest  functions  belonging  to  kings ;  and 
he  was,  moreover,  as  cautious  and  dissimulating  in  the 
formation  of  his  plans  as  he  was  bold  in  their  execution. 
Confident  of  the  support  of  the  people,  and  peculiarly 
gifted  with  qualities  for  obtaining  popularity,  he  waited 
long  enough  to  become  secure  of  his  position,  and  then, 


MONARCHY  AS  A  REFORMER  4S 

by  a  well-contrived  coup  d'etat,  overthrew  the  oligarchical 
government,  and  procured  the  ratification  of  a  constitu- 
tion which  gave  to  the  Crown  almost  absolute  power. 

Reign  and  Assassination  of  Gustavus  III. — For 
a  considerable  time  Gustavus  discharged  the  duties 
thus  incurred  without  infringing  the  limits  of  his 
authority.  But,  like  so  many  other  of  his  con- 
temporaries, he  fell  into  extravagancies  very  incom- 
mensurate with  the  resources  of  his  country.  His  hold 
upon  the  people  was  further  weakened  by  indulgence 
in  certain  whimsical  regulations,  for  which  he  betrayed 
a  taste  as  he  grew  older  ;  and  he  placed  a  very  damaging 
strain  on  his  authority  by  embarking  on  a  bootless  war 
with  Russia  in  complete  disregard  of  the  constitutional 
conditions  prescribed  for  such  a  step.  The  discontent 
thus  provoked  drove  him  to  resort  to  another  coup  ditaty 
which  left  him  a  perfectly  absolute  king,  and  deprived 
the  nobles  of  their  chief  remaining  privileges.  His 
fantastic  project  of  engaging  in  war  with  the  French 
revolutionary  government  brought  matters  to  a  climax. 
This  time  it  was  the  nobles  who  dealt  the  blow. 
Gustavus  had  neglected  to  conciliate  the  order  as  sound 
policy  dictated,  and  he  had  of  necessity  increased  its 
disaffection  by  injuring  its  interests  in  his  efforts  to 
improve  the  condition  of  the  people.  He  also  kept 
it  in  fear  of  another  assault  on  its  position,  while  his 
chivalrous  crazes  and  warlike  enterprises  opened  up  an 
indefinite  prospect  of  troubles  for  the  state.  A  con- 
spiracy was  formed  against  him,  and  he  was  shot  at  a 
masked  ball.  He  was  succeeded  by  his  son,  in  whom 
his  better  qualities  were  absent  and  his  eccentricities 
and  rashness  exaggerated.  Thus  it  came  about  that 
the  Crown  which  he  had  vested  with  supreme  power 
passed  in  the  end  to  a  French  adventurer  and  his  family. 
But  neither  did  the  old  evils  return,  nor  did  the  Swedes 


44  HISTORY  OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

require  again  to  fortify  the  foundations  of  monarchy 
before  adopting  a  more  balanced  system  of  government. 
The  Reign  of  Anarchy  in  Poland. — To  confirm  the 
lesson  afforded  by  the  history  of  the  Scandinavian 
states,  only  a  converse  example  was  required.  If  events 
in  Sweden  and  Denmark  demonstrated  with  distinctness 
the  nature  of  that  combat  which  lent  relevance  to  the 
existence  of  monarchical  institutions,  an  instance  of 
the  calamities  resulting  from  the  non-intervention  of  a 
powerful  crown  at  the  proper  juncture  in  the  life  of  a 
state,  was  alone  necessary  to  corroborate  the  conclusion 
that  kings  were  in  their  time  very  valuable  functionaries. 
And  it  happened  that  when  Sweden  was  extricated 
from  the  toils  of  a  traitorous  oligarchy  by  submitting 
to  the  high-handed  rule  of  a  single  man,  there  came  to 
pass  the  most  awful  catastrophe  which  in  modern  history 
has  overtaken  a  nation  in  revenge  for  obstinate  per- 
sistence in  systematic  anarchy.  Then  occurred  in  Poland 
the  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  aristocratic  insubordination 
and  turbulence.  To  assure  Polish  independence  in  the 
presence  of  vigorous  and  encroaching  neighbours,  it  was 
imperative  to  maintain  a  sound  social  organization,  and 
to  concentrate  the  country's  resources  in  the  hands  of  a 
political  superior.  But  here  the  magnates  of  the  com- 
munity were  most  powerful,  unrestrained,  and  self- 
seeking  ;  here  the  life  of  the  peasantry  most  nearly 
approached  brute  existence;  here  swarms  of  inferior 
nobles  filled  the  retinues  of  the  magnates  and  lived  upon 
the  society  without  contributing  anything  to  the  common 
stock ;  and  here,  in  consequence,  there  was  no  room  for 
free  and  honourable  industry.  The  only  bond  of  union 
in  the  land  was  an  intolerant  Catholicism.  The  Crown 
was  merely  an  inflammatory  fiction,  an  apple  of  discord  ; 
the  aristocratic  republican  assemblies  were  but  gather- 
ings  of  strife   and   disorder.     The  electiveness  of  the 


MONARCHY   AS   A  REFORMER  45 

monarchy,  the  disabilities  imposed  on  every  king  at  his 
election,  the  liberum  veto,  and  the  right  of  armed 
confederation,  were  the  never-failing  sources  of  dis- 
organization and  tumult.  While  other  countries  had 
been  preparing  themselves  to  enter  upon  the  modern 
stage  of  European  social  development,  Poland  had  been 
sinking  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  extremes  of  serfage 
and  baronial  licence.  Here  was  wanting  every  con- 
stituent of  true  patriotism.  Here  was  absent  or  perverted 
every  influence  which  usually  strengthens  and  protects 
the  lives  of  nations.  The  very  valour  of  the  Poles  was 
spent  on  wild  civil  conflicts ;  their  talents  stood  them 
in  best  stead  for  intrigue ;  their  love  of  freedom  vented 
itself  in  lawless  individualism.  Nothing  in  them  con- 
formed to  the  laws  of  sound  existence. 

Consequent  Partitions  of  Poland,  1772-95. — And 
this  rule  of  the  abnormal  vitiated  even  their  participation 
in  the  time's  enlightenment.  True,  the  party,  to  whom 
experience  and  instruction  from  abroad  had  suggested 
fundamental  reform,  was  so  far  in  harmony  with  the 
regular  conditions  of  things  as  to  single  out,  for  the 
first  step  towards  improvement,  the  conversion  of 
the  elective  sovereignty,  with  its  brawls,  intrigues,  and 
debility,  into  a  stable  hereditary  monarchy.  But  it 
stultified  this  aspiration  by  relying  on  the  most  fatal  of 
all  means  for  the  achievement  of  the  change,  to  wit, 
the  help  of  Russia.  On  the  death  of  Augustus  HI.,  the 
Saxon  King  of  Poland,  this  misguided  reform  party 
appealed  to  Catherine  H.  for  help  to  enable  it  to  place 
on  the  throne  one  of  its  own  candidates.  She  readily 
accepted  the  invitation  to  meddle  with  the  affairs  of  the 
distracted  state.  She  provided  the  men  and  money 
necessary  to  secure  a  unanimous  election  on  the  field  of 
Vola.  But  the  successful  candidate  was  one  of  her  old 
lovers,  the  weak  and  irresolute  Stanislaus  Poniatowski 


46  HISTORY  OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

At  the  same  time,  under  the  guise  of  protector  of 
Poland's  constitution  and  liberty,  she  prohibited  all 
attempts  to  abolish  the  main  causes  of  anarchy — a 
perfidious  policy,  in  which  she  was  countenanced  by 
Austria,  and  abetted  by  Prussia.  Poland  was  thus 
finally  reduced  to  a  condition  of  impotent  confusion. 
Violence  and  guile  from  without  completed  the  work 
for  which  dissension  and  anarchy  had  long  prepared 
within.  The  time  was  come  for  the  fulfilment  of  John 
Casimir's  prophecy  ;  the  scheme  often  broached  in 
secret  was  now  openly  realized.  The  three  neighbour- 
ing monarchies  stepped  in  and  seized  portions  of  the 
Polish  territory.  A  few  years  passed,  and  the  Poles 
made  a  movement  towards  the  regeneration  of  their 
state  after  the  same  hasty  fashion  which  the  French 
were  then  following  in  their  revolution.  But  they  were 
as  unable  to  extricate  themselves  from  the.  snares  of 
their  enemies  as  from  their  own  follies  and  vices.  In 
the  name  of  order  their  reforming  efforts  were  nullified 
and  the  second  partition  of  the  country  took  place.  A 
little  longer,  and  the  kingdom  of  the  Jagellons  was 
entirely  incorporated  into  the  three  military  monarchies 
of  Eastern  Europe. 

Aristocratic  Government  in  England. — Even  in 
our  own  country  the  cause  of  reform  was  not  altogether 
dissociated  from  the  action  of  monarchy  and  individual 
greatness.  Notwithstanding  the  unique  character  of 
British  constitutional  progress,  the  political  condition 
of  England  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
bore  a  certain  degree  of  resemblance  to  that  of  conti- 
nental states  of  the  same  period.  In  both  cases  a 
powerful  aristocracy  exercised  great  influence  on 
society  and  the  management  of  public  affairs.  In 
both  cases,  too,  considerable  evils  were  experienced 
through  the  corrupt  practices  and  lax  morality  which 


MONARCHY   AS   A  REFORMER  47 

infected  to  a  more  or  less  extent  all  the  upper  classes  of 
Europe  at  this  time. 

The  Personal  Influence  of  Pitt.— And  the  first 
event  to  remove  from  parliamentary  government  the 
dishonour  which  had  fallen  upon  it  in  the  classic  land 
of  its  adoption  was  one  entirely  in  agreement  with  the 
main  tendency  of  the  age.  This  was  no  other  than  the 
appearance  from  among  the  wealthy  commoners  of  a 
great  and  commanding  character.  The  efforts  of  the 
elder  Pitt  brought  to  England  a  splendid  meed  of 
military  glory;  but  incomparably  more  memorable 
were  the  purer  and  nobler  conceptions  of  political  life, 
which  render  him  pre-eminent  among  the  statesmen  of 
the  century.  He  it  was  who  hushed  the  mean 
squabblings  of  faction  by  the  impassioned  utterances 
of  fervid  patriotism,  who  put  to  shame  sordid  strife  for 
lucre  and  position  by  personal  indifference  to  dignities 
and  emoluments,  who  vehemently  strove  to  breathe 
into  the  nation  and  its  rulers  a  lofty  singleness  of 
purpose,  and  to  found  government  on  the  confidence 
of  the  people.  His  example,  precepts,  and  legislation 
were  to  England  what  reforming  monarchy  was  to 
contemporaneous  Europe.  He  first  raised  that  protest 
against  oligarchical  rule  which  ultimately  issued  in  a 
radical  reform  of  the  Commons.  He  first  vindicated 
the  true  principles  of  representative  government  in  the 
face  of  an  obdurate  parliament.  He,  first  among  states- 
men, hailed  the  birth  of  the  great  American  Republic 
with  eloquent  traditions  of  British  constitutional  freedom. 
He  first  discerned  the  awakening  political  capacity  of 
the  English  people,  and  promoted  that  national  life 
which  has  since  distinguished  it  among  the  nations. 
Before  his  time  opposition  to  the  vices  of  the  govern- 
ment had  been  but  the  artifice  of  those  worsted  in  their 
use.     To  his  generous  and  statesmanlike  views   must 


48  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

primarily  be  traced  the  greater  part  of  the  improve- 
ments which  have  since  been  incorporated  into  the 
English  constitution. 

Accession  of  George  III.,  1760. — But  while  it  was 
England's  privilege  to  receive  these  lessons  of  the  time 
through  the  person  of  William  Pitt,  it  was  also  its  mis- 
fortune to  be  afflicted  with  a  sovereign  who  represented 
in  a  limited  sense  the  wilfulness  of  the  continental  type 
of  monarch,  and  invaded  with  disastrous  effects  the 
spirit  and  forms  of  the  polity  established  by  the 
Revolution.  George  III.  ascended  the  throne  at  a 
crisis  which  demanded  the  most  sincere  and  adroit 
exercise  of  the  royal  prerogative  in  behalf  of  sound 
constitutional  government.  To  the  neglect  and  abuse 
of  the  powers  of  the  Crown  had  chiefly  been  owing  the 
degradation  of  the  parliamentary  system ;  by  their 
judicious  application  it  seemed  that  the  sources  of  evil 
might  be  stopped,  and  the  national  policy  of  Pitt  im- 
posed upon  the  ruling  classes.  Now  the  new  king  was 
in  many  respects  qualified  to  contend  with  the  evils 
from  which  England  suffered.  He  set  a  conspicuous 
example  of  purity  and  simplicity  in  living  ;  he  possessed 
a  strong  feeling  of  duty,  and  a  will  so  firm  that  under 
the  influence  of  temper  it  degenerated  into  immovable 
obstinacy ;  he  was  conspicuously  courageous,  kind- 
hearted,  and  hard-working ;  he  was  remarkably  clear- 
sighted so  far  as  his  vision  extended ;  and  he  came  to 
the  throne  glorying  in  the  name  of  Briton,  or,  to  be 
textually  exact,  of  Britain.  Nevertheless,  his  reign, 
viewed  with  regard  to  the  action  of  the  Crown,  is  the 
record  of  a  long  serias  of  corrupt  dealings,  deplorable 
failures,  and  reprehensible  misdeeds. 

Growth  of  Liberalism  in  the  English  Parlia- 
ment.— But  there  is  another  aspect  of  the  reign  more 
deserving  of  recognition.     There  is  a  point  of  view  from 


MONARCHY  AS  A  REFORMER  49 

which  George  III.  appears  as  an  ally  of  the  people 
against  the  aristocratic  oligarchy.  The  resolute  self- 
assertion  of  the  king  raised  up  a  new  Tory  party,  which 
was  dominated  by  intense  devotion  to  the  reigning 
sovereign,  and  by  reverence  for  the  royal  prerogative. 
The  fears  aroused  by  the  sight  of  the  French  Revolution 
confirmed  it  in  its  monarchical  views,  filled  it  with  a 
craven  dread  of  all  change,  and  brought  it  many 
additional  recruits.  The  possession  of  a  leader,  though 
hardly  a  representative,  in  the  younger  Pitt,  gave  it 
further  preponderance.  The  Tory  party  became 
supreme,  and  long  continued  to  wield  the  chief  power 
in  the  state.  Meanwhile  a  new  Whig  party  had  been 
formed.  Overwhelmed  in  the  Upper  House  by  George's 
servile  levies,  beaten  in  the  Commons  by  the  immense 
influence  of  the  king  and  his  friends,  doggedly  opposed 
by  the  clergy  in  their  efforts  to  recover  the  ground  lost 
in  former  reigns,  the  traditional  guardians  of  the 
acquisitions  of  the  Revolution  were  forced  to  seek 
assistance  by  appealing  to  liberal  and  popular  principles. 
The  lower  sections  of  the  middle  class,  and  even  the 
lowest  orders,  thus  found  representation  in  the  un- 
reformed  parliament.  The  upper  portion  of  the 
industrial  world  was  emboldened  by  the  increasing 
force  of  public  opinion,  by  the  publication  of  debates, 
by  the  great  influence  of  the  press,  by  the  institution  of 
public  meetings,  and  by  the  talents  of  the  Whig  leaders, 
to  pay  less  regard  to  courtly  honours  and  preferment, 
and  to  rally  round  the  party  to  which  it  was  by  nature 
more  closely  allied  than  to  the  supporters  of  despotism 
and  obscurantism.  Hence  the  revival  of  monarchical 
rule  in  England,  which  necessarily  produced  an  anoma- 
lous deadlock  in  the  government,  and  occasioned  a 
serious  pause  in  the  political  progress  of  the  nation, 
was  not  altogether  void  of  the  general  results  achieved 


50  HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

by  absolutism  in  the  century.  By  the  power  of  the 
Crown  the  factious  rule  of  aristocracy  was  crushed,  and 
the  traditional  upholders  of  freedom  were  forced  to 
espouse  the  cause  of  popular  liberty. 

Degeneracy  of  the  French  Monarchy. — In  France 
alone,  amid  a  host  of  evils,  monarchy  did  nothing  to 
earn  respect  or  gratitude.  When  in  other  states  it  was 
playing  a  great  national  roky  here,  where  it  had  reached 
its  earliest  and  most  imposing  development,  it  became 
an  object  of  contempt  and  disgust.  When  Louis  XV, 
died,  hope,  if  not  confidence,  was  restored  to  the  throne. 
His  grandson  was  free  from  vices,  and  disposed  to  take 
interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  nation.  Unfortunately, 
Louis  XVI.  was  without  firmness  of  character  or 
consistency  of  purpose.  He  allowed  his  frivolous 
queen  and  wayward  court  to  countervail  his  good 
intentions,  their  intrigues  to  thwart  his  plans,  and  the 
clamours  of  a  mob  to  shake  his  confidence  in  his 
ministers.  He  could  offer  no  resistance  to  the  down- 
ward course  of  the  monarchy.  Passively  he  was  borne 
along,  the  luckless  victim  of  its  decadence. 

Turgot's  Ministry  of  Reform. — But  France  could 
not  be  the  only  civilized  nation  whose  rulers  were 
heedless  of  French  ideas  of  reform.  Even  in  the  reign 
of  Louis  XV.,  something  of  the  new  spirit  had  found 
expression  in  the  ruling  circles  ;  and  more  than  one 
capable  administrator  had  fallen  in  attempts  to  remove 
abuses  and  introduce  improvements.  But  evil  had  to 
grow  yet  stronger  before  power  was  given  to  a  man 
qualified  to  cope  with  the  great  and  complex  dangers 
which  surrounded  the  state.  Turgot  was  not  entrusted 
with  the  ministry  of  finance  till  the  situation  had  be- 
come so  desperate,  that  only  the  most  drastic  measures 
could  prevent  a  speedy  collapse  of  the  monarchical 
fabric.       Thoroughly    instructed     by    his    memorable 


MONARCHY  AS  A  REFORMER  51 

administration  of  Limousin,  Turgot  was  fully  aware 
of  the  circumstances  under  which  he  entered  office. 
No  man  of  his  day  knew  better  the  strength  of  tra- 
ditional institutions,  and  the  intimate  connection  of 
the  present  with  the  past.  He,  at  any  rate,  is  free  from 
the  blame  so  often  imputed  to  unsuccessful  reformers,  the 
reproach  of  hasty,  ill-considered  innovation.  With  calm 
instructed  vision  he  contemplated  the  evils  which  afflicted 
France.  Following  the  conclusions  of  the  economical 
school  which  he  adorned,  he  drew  up,  in  conjunction 
with  Malesherbes,  the  only  possible  scheme  for  saving 
the  country.  The  plan  in  its  entire  form  comprised 
nearly  every  change,  which,  after  years  of  turmoil,  pro- 
duced modern  France.  Among  the  projects  of  this 
reforming  ministry  were  provincial  self-government, 
popular  education,  freedom  of  the  press,  and  the 
admission  of  the  burgher  class  to  all  public  offices; 
the  abolition  of  the  road  corvee,  and  of  guilds,  and 
hindrances  to  agriculture ;  the  equable  distribution  of 
taxation,  the  liberation  of  trade,  and  the  reorganization 
of  justice,  police,  and  finance  ;  the  commutation  of  feudal 
burdens  and  seignorial  rights ;  reduction  of  the  royal 
expenditure ;  disuse  of  lettres  de  cachet ;  and  through 
the  minister  of  war,  St.  Germain,  improvement  of  dis- 
cipline, and  the  recognition  of  merit  in  the  army. 

Adequacy  of  Turgot's  Scheme  of  Reform. — There 
was  in  truth  no  reason  to  discredit  the  ability  of  Turgot's 
ministry  to  save  the  state,  far  on  the  road  to  destruc- 
tion as  that  state  had  gone.  The  means  employed 
would  certainly  have  amounted  to  a  revolution  ;  but 
they  would  have  been  applied  with  judgment,  and  with 
prudent  consideration  for  the  sacrifices  and  derange- 
ments necessarily  involved  in  such  a  process.  The  trite 
assertion  that  France  was  not  to  be  purged  by  any- 
thing short  of  a  consuming  fever  is  nothing  but  the 


52  HISTORY  OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

commonplace  of  a  careless  historical  optimism.  To 
condemn  the  offending  classes  as  corrupt  matter,  to  be 
destroyed  at  all  costs,  is  possible  only  through  gross 
misapprehension  of  their  motives  and  disposition.  The 
most  fortunate  members  of  the  old  order  were  not 
monsters  past  all  reform,  and  the  most  pernicious  in- 
stitutions might  have  been  abolished  without  immolat- 
ing the  individuals  whom  they  harboured.  The  changes 
contemplated  by  Turgot  would  have  rendered  needless 
a  series  of  spasmodic  revolutions,  following  no  fixed 
principle,  owning  no  guides,  and  submitting  to  no  laws 
of  politics  or  morality.  To  execute  them,  however, 
power  was  required  to  control  the  influential,  the 
ignorant,  and  the  base. 

Incapacity  of  Louis  XVI. — The  power  was  not 
available.  Though  Turgot  won  the  entire  approval  of 
the  king  for  his  plans  of  removing  hardship  and  abuse, 
and  the  good  Louis  was  persuaded  that  only  he  and 
his  minister  cared  for  the  people,  the  contemplated  re- 
forms were  hardly  commenced  when  it  became  evident 
that  the  royal  authority  would  shrink  from  engaging 
with  the  furious  opposition  aroused  in  all  conservative 
quarters.  It  is  a  never-failing  consequence  of  human 
nature  that  the  most  virtuous  will  offer  violent  resistance 
when  they  believe  their  interests  to  be  imperilled,  even 
though  the  change  be  clearly  for  the  public  good.  The 
strong  arm  of  the  majority,  or  of  some  other  political 
superior,  is  always  necessary  to  compel  acquiescence 
from  those  who  would  recoil  in  their  calmer  moments 
from  wilful  injury  to  society.  But  Louis  had  no  sense 
for  the  arbitrary  element  in  personal  government.  He 
could  not  comprehend  that  pure  monarchies  possess 
the  essential  disadvantage  of  wittingly  or  unwittingly 
nurturing  anachronisms  and  abuses,  and  that  to  redress 
the  social  balance  the  discretionary  power  of  despotism 


MONARCHY  AS  A  REFORMER  5S 

must  occasionally  be  exercised.  He  clung  too  closely 
to  the  dictates  of  domestic  morality  and  the  law  for 
private  persons  to  be  able  to  understand  that  monarchs 
must  sometimes  defy  the  law,  ignore  individuals,  and 
disregard  tumult,  if  they  are  to  preserve  the  health  of 
their  states. 

Fall  of  Target's  Ministry,  1776. — On  the  decree  of 
the  first  and  most  urgent  reform,  namely,  the  emancipa- 
tion of  the  corn  trade  from  absurd  regulations,  he  dis- 
played an  entire  lack  of  firmness  to  withstand  the 
uproar  which  interested  and  prejudiced  opponents 
excited  by  vulgar  fallacy  and  suborning  arts.  And 
though  he  was  induced  to  overcome  the  resistance  of 
the  parliament  of  Paris  to  following  edicts  of  great 
moment  by  the  recognized  act  of  a  lit  de  justice ,  his 
reluctance  to  support  his  ministers  in  their  policy 
became  so  embarrassing  that  it  was  evident  that  they 
soon  would  have  no  alternative  but  resignation.  More- 
over, Louis  became  as  suspicious  of  his  servants  as  they 
of  him.  While  anxious  to  adopt  their  suggestions  for 
the  purification  of  the  state,  he  shrank  from  their  schemes 
for  reconstructing  it.  Turgot,  staunch  monarchist  though 
he  was,  hesitated  not  to  lay  before  him  demands  for 
fundamental  changes  in  the  French  constitution.  That 
Louis  was  wrong  in  supposing  that  France  might  be 
saved  by  mere  amendments  is  certain  ;  that  Turgot, 
perhaps  impatient  to  sound  at  once  the  full  depth  of 
the  king's  confidence,  submitted  too  abruptly  a  revolu- 
tionary project,  seems  equally  clear.  Possibly  further 
intercourse  with  one  another  might  have  brought  king 
and  minister  into  accord  if  at  this  juncture  the  enmity 
of  the  court  to  the  ministry  had  not  culminated  in  a 
personal  intrigue  against  Turgot  and  Vergennes.  At 
any  rate,  the  king  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
ministerial  policy  was  dangerous,  and  that  the  discontent 


54  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

it  aroused  was  unendurable.  Reproached  by  queen  and 
court  for  parsimony  towards  their  enjoyments,  and 
injustice  towards  their  favourites  ;  summoned  by  clergy, 
nobility,  and  lawyers  to  prevent  the  disturbance  of 
feudal  institutions,  Louis  XVI.  made  up  his  mind  to 
discard  all  heroic  measures.  Turgot,  Malesherbes,  and 
St.  Germain  were  dismissed  from  his  service,  and  France 
resumed  the  road  to  blind  revolution. 

Inevitableness  of  the  French  Revolution. — Within 
a  few  years  of  Turgot's  fall  the  catastrophe  happened. 
Seldom  does  the  same  generation,  which  wilfully  and 
selfishly  obstructs  amendment,  live  to  suffer  retributive 
evil ;  rarely  do  the  members  of  unyielding  classes 
expiate  in  their  own  persons  the  social  ills  which  they 
have  deliberately  made  their  own.  But  in  this  instance 
a  terrible  vengeance  overtook  those  who  had  conspired 
to  defeat  timely  reform.  Nor  did  this  Nemesis  confine 
itself  to  France.  It  reached  forth  over  the  whole  face  of 
Europe,  and  spared  not  the  realm  of  the  most  enlightened 
monarch.  With  measured  justice  the  Revolution  passed 
from  country  to  country.  Imposed  from  without  or 
generated  from  within,  it  brought  to  judgment  the  work 
of  personal  governments.  While  visiting  their  crimes 
and  shortcomings,  it  extended  their  reforms  into  a  new 
phase  of  social  progress.  The  reforming  monarchs 
failed  very  grievously  to  exempt  their  states  from  in- 
cursions of  the  Revolution.  Their  work  was  valuable, 
and  their  lives  notable,  so  far  as  they  succeeded  in 
anticipating  its  dispensations.  But  they  were  far  too 
vain  and  corrupt,  far  too  much  entangled  in  feudal 
evils,  far  too  contemptuous  of  the  people,  to  forestall 
in  their  short  allotted  time  the  main  changes  which 
made  Europe  modern. 

The  unnecessary  character  of  the  Revolution. — 
On  the  other  hand,  if  Turgot  had  succeeded  in  saving 


MONARCHY  AS   A    REFORMER  55 

the  French  monarchy;  if  for  another  generation 
sovereigns  or  their  ministers,  free  from  imputations  of 
anarchy,  had  been  permitted  to  experiment  and  reform  ; 
if  England,  unscared  by  revolutionary  tragedies,  had 
been  allowed  to  lead  the  w^orld  without  intermission 
in  its  course  of  political  progress  and  industrial  develop- 
ment ;  if  the  new  industry,  the  new  mechanics,  the  new 
economics,  the  new  humanity,  had  not  been  hindered  in 
their  beneficent  extension  by  the  ruin  of  war  and  the 
stupor  of  reaction  ;  if,  indeed,  the  whole  French  Revolu- 
tion had  never  happened — then  the  Europe  of  to-day 
would  be  the  Europe  of  a  century  hence,  and  the  tale 
of  sorrow,  war,  and  struggle,  which  will  form  the  sequel 
to  this  book,  would  have  been  a  narrative  of  progress 
timely  but  not  premature,  of  changes  wholesome  but 
rarely  cruel,  of  war  dread  as  an  arbitrament  but  in- 
vigorating as  an  effort,  of  plenty  spreading  with  the 
increase  of  wealth,  of  content  diffused  along  with  every 
political,  industrial,  and  spiritual  advance.  But  Turgot 
failed  ;  and  historians,  perhaps  wisely,  perhaps  stupidly, 
holding  to  the  actual,  pronounce  the  Revolution  to  have 
been  all  along  as  necessary  as  it  was  then  inevitable. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  REVOLUTION 

"  Es  erben  sich  Gesetz'  und  Rechte 
Wie  eine  ew'ge  Krankheit  fort ; 
Sie  schleppen  von  Geschlecht  sich  zum  Geschlechte, 
Und  riicken  sacht  von  Ort  zu  Ort. 
Vernunft  wird  Unsinn,  Wohlthat  Plage ; 
Weh  dir,  dass  du  ein  Enkel  bist ! 
Vom  Rechte,  das  mit  uns  geboren  ist, 
Von  dem  ist,  leider  I  nie  die  Frage." 

Goethe. 

"  We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident : — that  all  men  are 
created  equal ;  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain 
inalienable  rights  ;  that  among  these,  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pur- 
suit of  happiness  ;  that  to  secure  these  rights,  governments  are 
instituted  among  men,  deriving  their  just  powers  from  the  consent 
of  the  governed  ;  and  whenever  any  form  of  government  becomes 
destructive  of  these  ends,  it  is  the  right  of  the  people  to  alter  and 
abolish  it,  and  to  institute  a  new  government ;  laying  its  founda- 
tions on  such  principles,  and  organizing  its  powers  in  such  form, 
as  to  them  shall  seem  most  likely  to  effect  their  safety  and  happi- 
ness."— American  Declaration  of  Independence. 

"  Leicht  bei  einander  wohnen  die  Gedanken, 
Doch  hart  im  Raume  stossen  sich  die  Dinge." 

Schiller. 

Decline  of  Monarchy's  Moral  Reputation.  —  If 
monarchy  in  the  eighteenth  century  may  be  studied  as 
a  reformer,  no  less  appropriately  may  it  be  treated  as 
a  scandal.  In  France  the  intense  feeling  of  confidence 
in  the  crown  was  gradually  changed  by  painful  ex- 
perience into  utter  weariness  of  its  vice  and  incom- 
petence.   Among  the  minor  German  potentates  prevailed 

56 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  57 

depravity  and  oppression  only  distinguishable  from 
that  of  Versailles  by  greater  grossness  and  absurdity. 
Even  at  courts,  where  claims  to  something  better  must 
be  allowed,  conduct  was  frequently  in  vogue  which 
could  not  but  impair  love  and  reverence  for  the  throne. 
About  this  period,  too,  many  disputed  successions  had 
lowered  the  royal  authority  in  public  estimation.  Hence 
sprang  up  feelings  of  hostility  against  monarchical  insti- 
tutions, feelings  which  enervated  in  every  breast  the 
sentiments  of  loyalty,  though  they  preponderated  only 
in  the  most  impatient  minds.  Along  with  nobles  and 
ecclesiastics,  kings  came  to  be  suspected  as  traitors  to 
the  public  weal.  As  yet  the  advantages  of  placing 
monarchical  power  on  a  new  footing,  by  uniting  it  to  a 
constitution,  were  understood  by  few.  The  services  of 
despotism  were  too  recent  and  patent  for  the  multitude 
consciously  to  contemplate  its  subversion.  The  halcyon 
days  of  kings  were  ended,  but  their  remembrance  still 
illumined  royalty  in  the  popular  imagination.* 

The  Philosophers  attack  Monarchical  Authority. 
— Parallel  with  this  change  of  feeling  occurred  a  similar 
but  independent  change  in  the  doctrines  of  the  social 
theorists,  which  encouraged  the  growing  disrespect  for 
princes,  and  was  in  its  turn  rendered  more  extreme  by 

♦  The  iconoclasts  felt  this  keenly.  * '  Des  prejuges  non  moins  dangereux, 
ont  aveugle  les  hommes  sur  leurs  gouvernemens.  Les  nations  ne  con- 
nurent  point  les  vrais  fondemens  de  I'autorite ;  elles  n'oserent  exiger  le 
bonheur  de  ces  Rois,  charges  de  le  leur  procurer ;  elles  crurent  que  les 
souverains,  travestis  en  Dieux,  recevoient  en  naissant  le  droit  de  com- 
mander au  reste  des  mortels,  pouvoient  disposer  k  leur  gre  de  la  felicite  des 
peuples,  et  n'etoient  point  comptables  des  malheureux  qu'ils  faisoient.  Par 
une  suite  necessaire  de  ces  opinions,  la  politique  degenera  dans  I'art  fatal 
de  sacrifier  la  feHcite  de  tous  au  caprice  d'un  seul,  ou  de  quelques  mechans 
privilegies." — Holbach's  Systime  de  la  Nature^  i.,  p.  339, 

The  copy  of  this  famous  book  in  the  Bodleian  Library  is  from  a  pirated 
edition,  and  is  incorrectly  printed,  to  the  detriment  of  the  language.  Both 
editions  profess  to  have  been  printed  in  London,  1770,  though  the  genuine 
one  was  probably  produced  in  Amsterdam. 


58  HISTORY  OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

monarchy's  ill-repute.  Logically  viewed,  the  change 
was  an  easy  one.  The  current  sensational  philosophy 
readily  transformed  itself  into  materialism  and  atheism, 
or  in  other  words,  into  naturalism  of  a  somewhat  low 
type.  From  such  a  creed  no  hierarchical  scheme  of 
society  could  receive  sanction.  Gradations  of  rank 
were  repugnant  to  its  vaunted  simplicity,  and  were 
dismissed  as  the  inventions  of  craft  and  despotism. 
They  obtained  no  recognition  from  its  crude  utilitarian 
ethics.  A  fantastic  uniformity  was  attributed  to  the 
natural  order,  and  was  prescribed  for  the  ideal  society. 
The  strictures  of  rationalism  were  violently  enforced. 
The  Church,  the  nobles,  and  the  feudal  evils  were  con- 
demned. Finally,  and  in  due  sequence,  kings  were 
denounced  as  charlatans,  impostors,  and  oppressors. 
The  rule  of  reason  alone  was  declared  legitimate  ;  and 
by  reason  was  meant  obedience  within  certain  limits 
of  social  reciprocity  to  the  unsophisticated  inclinations 
of  the  individual.  At  present,  said  Holbach,  "  L'etat 
de  soci^t6  est  un  ^tat  de  guerre  du  souverain  contre 
tous,  et  de  chacun  des  membres  les  uns  contre  les 
autres.  L'homme  est  m^chant,  non  parcequ'il  est  ne 
mechant,  mais  parcequ'on  le  rend  tel ;  les  grands,  les 
puissants  ^crasent  impunement  les  indigents,  les  mal- 
heureux."  "Fremissez  done,  Rois  cruels,  qui  plongez 
vos  sujets  dans  la  misere  et  les  larmes,  qui  ravagez  les 
nations,  qui  changez  la  terre  en  un  cimiti^re  aride ; 
fremissez  des  traits  de  sang  sous  lesquels  Thistoire 
irrit^e  vous  peindra  pour  les  races  futures ;  ni  vos 
monumens  somptueux,  ni  vos  victoires  imposantes,  ni 
vos  armees  innombrables  n'empecheront  la  post^rit^ 
d'insulter  vos  manes  odieux ;  et  de  venger  ses  ayeux 
de  vos  eclatants  forfaits  ! " 

Rousseau's   Theory  of  Natural   Society More 

subversive  than  this  line  of  argument  were  the  writings 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  59 

of  a  man  who  in  many  senses  was  a  reactionist.  Like 
the  more  extreme  apostles  of  enlightenment,  J.  J. 
Rousseau  glorified  the  order  of  nature  and  vindicated 
the  democratic  constitution  of  society.  But  he  treated 
with  scorn  their  passionate  belief  in  the  beneficent 
influence  of  the  arts  and  sciences.  He  opposed  to  the 
enthusiasm  for  scientific  and  social  advance  a  senti- 
mental yearning  for  return  to  primaeval  simplicity.  He 
found  the  salvation  of  society  not  in  the  false  wisdom 
of  the  cultured,  but  in  the  healthy  instincts  of  the 
unlettered.  He  awoke  among  the  fine  ladies  and 
gentlemen  of  the  rococo  time  a  taste  for  the  charms 
of  humble  life,  and  a  sense  for  the  first  duties  of  human 
existence.  He  placed  the  nurture  and  rearing  of  the 
young  in  a  new  light.  With  him  homely  functions  and 
family  cares  were  winning  privileges.  Under  his  spell 
the  daily  toil  of  the  country  grew  sweet ;  labour  became 
dignified,  and  poverty  admirable. 

Rousseau's  Doctrine  of  Politics. — On  the  other 
hand,  Rousseau  furnished  a  text-book  for  the  demo- 
cratic party  in  his  Contrat  Social  He  who  had 
formerly  inveighed  against  society  as  the  creature  of 
imposture  and  fraud,  who  had  declared  property  to  be 
the  source  of  all  social  evils  and  disturbance,  came  to 
compose  a  theory  of  the  social  structure  in  which  the 
rights  of  property  were  taken  for  granted,  many  possible 
benefits  were  asserted  of  the  social  state,  and  all  mis- 
fortunes were  traced  to  the  abnormal  character  of 
political  institutions.  Society,  he  taught,  was  founded 
on  a  contract  between  its  members.  Therefore  the 
sovereign  power  resided  in  the  people.  The  sovereignty, 
moreover,  was  inalienable.  Under  all  circumstances  the 
people  might  resume  any  authority  they  had  delegated.* 

*  The  right  of  a  people  to  rebel  against  its  rulers,  was  not  unknown 
among  the  monarchies  of  Europe.    Till  the  beginning  of  the  century  it  was 


60  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

Society,  in  short,  was  a  brotherhood,  in  which  all  were 
citizens  and  equals,  acting  individually  as  subjects  and 
collectively  as  the  sovereign.  This  view  of  the  body 
politic,  proclaimed  by  the  most  popular  writer  of  the 
day,  in  terse  formulae,  and  with  much  show  of  mathe- 
matical precision,  opened  every  mind  to  the  idea  of 
revolution  by  and  for  the  people.  It  persuaded  of  its 
lawfulness  many  who  were  shocked  by  the  tirades  of 
materialist  philosophers,  or  were  disinclined  to  study 
the  speculations  of  severer  thinkers.  The  doctrine  of 
fraternity  dealt  a  mortal  blow  at  the  atomism  of  French 
society.  It  redeemed  the  sense  of  nationality  and 
citizenship  from  subjection  to  the  class  and  individual- 
istic feelings  which  were  at  once  the  basis  and  the  danger 
of  the  French  monarchy.  From  being  the  most  minutely 
divided  yet  homogeneous  nation,  France  grew  since  this 
time  to  be  the  most  united  and  patriotic  people  of  the 
continent. 

Rousseau's  Republican  Ideas — For  practical 
politics  Rousseau  gave  little  instruction.  Excepting 
approval  of  a  dictatorship,  as  the  cure  for  inveterate 
social  disorders,  and  a  proposal  to  banish  the  members 
of  an  unsocial  creed,  and  to  punish  with  death  any  one 
who,  having  recognized  the  dogmas  of  civil  religion, 
acted  as  if  he  did  not  believe  them — suggestions  which 
were  destined  to  be  to  France  a  very  Pandora's  box 
of  woes — no  maxims  for  immediate  application  were 
discoverable  in  his  work.  One  form  of  government, 
however,  was  distinctly  recommended,  and  this  was 
republican.  Indeed,  a  republic  of  some  kind,  a  republic 
on  a  small  scale   and   peculiarly  sensitive  to  popular 

recognized  by  the  King  of  Hungary,  in  his  coronation  oath,  as  a  legal  pro- 
ceeding, after  the  fashion  of  Poland  ;  and  Voltaire  had  erroneously  stated 
in  Le  Sikle  de  Louis  Quinze^  that  it  had  been  revived  on  the  accession  of 
Maria  Theresa. 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  61 

passions,  was  the  only  polity  consistent  with  the  in- 
alienable sovereignty  of  the  people.  This  conclusion 
eventually  produced  the  most  momentous  consequences  ; 
but  at  the  time  of  publication,  though  supported  by 
the  general  tenor  of  the  current  theories,  it  had  to  con- 
tend with  the  grave  disfavour  into  which  contemporary 
republican  institutions  had  fallen. 

Disrepute  of  Republican  Government. — In  the 
first  place,  though  the  Polish  republic  was  but  a  trans- 
parent travesty  of  a  commonwealth,  its  impending 
wreck  lent  for  the  undiscriminating  spectator  very 
sinister  associations  to  every  polity  not  founded  on  a 
monarchical  basis.*  Then  Holland,  the  most  glorious 
champion  in  civilized  Europe  of  popular  right  against 
despotism,  seemed  to  have  lost  the  virtues  and  forms 
of  a  republic,  together  with  the  wealth  and  influence 
which  freedom  and  energy  had  bestowed.  In  Switzer- 
land, again,  republican  government  had  lost  much  re- 
putation. Here  oligarchies  had  followed  the  example 
and  instigation  of  Louis  XIV.  by  usurping  power  where 
it  had  belonged  to  the  people,  or  by  illiberally  consoli- 
dating it  where  their  pre-eminence  had  always  been 
recognized.  And  when  rebellion  resisted  their  supre- 
macy in  one  canton,  the  lords  of  others  came  to  the 
rescue.  Only  in  Geneva  had  concessions  been  wrung 
from  them  by  determined  agitation.  In  Italy  the  re- 
publican survivals  from  the  Middle  Ages  were  republics 
only  in  name ;  and  the  tiny  state  of  San  Marino  alone 
preserved  in  its  village  life  the  best  traditions  of  primitive 
self-government.  Hence  it  was  a  coincidence  of  most 
serious  import,  that  within  a  few  years  of  the  appearance 

*  The  character  of  the  Polish  republic  was  long  a  source  of  illusion  to 
the  ill-informed.  In  1792  one  of  the  Gironde  classed  the  Polish  with  the 
English,  Anglo-American,  Helvetic,  and  Dutch  nations  as  the  only  repre- 
sentatives of  freedom  with  whom  the  French  Republic  should  deign  to 
make  alliances. 

o 


UNIVERSITY 

OF 

■£U.lfOB^-\^ 


62  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

of  Rousseau's  book,  there  was  founded  by  deliberate 
design  the  greatest  republic  of  the  world's  history,  and 
that  this  was  achieved  after  a  successful  conflict  with  a 
European  king,  with  the  help  of  the  French  nation,  and 
to  the  augmentation  of  the  embarrassments  surrounding 
the  French  monarchy. 

France  and  the  American  Republic. — But  even 
then  republicanism  was  not  regarded  with  real  trust  or 
approval.  America  itself,  trained  and  biassed  though 
it  was  in  that  direction,  did  not  approach  a  republican 
form  of  government  with  entire  confidence.  It  would 
be  little  wide  of  the  truth  to  say  that  Americans,  like 
the  Netherlanders  in  the  age  of  the  Reformation,  adopted 
such  a  polity  only  because  they  could  not  do  otherwise. 
After  the  successful  issue  of  the  conflict  and  the  erection 
pf  the  Union's  constitution,  misgivings  became  less  obsti- 
nate. The  new  republic  had  not  had  time  to  demonstrate 
its  stability  and  efficiency,  and  its  conditions  rendered 
it  far  from  an  apposite  example  for  a  European  state ; 
but  belief  in  its  kind  of  constitution  became  a  perfectly 
tenable  position.  Once  again  in  the  history  of  man 
were  encouraged  hopes  of  genuine  self-government  by 
highly  civilized  communities.  Though  far  from  con- 
verting old  France  to  the  extreme  consequences  of  the 
theory  of  the  social  contract,  the  event  gave  additional 
force  and  circulation  to  the  floating  democratic  ideas, 
and  familiarized  the  densest  minds  with  the  doctrine  of 
the  sovereignty  of  the  people,  and  the  lawfulness  of 
rebellion. 

Difficulties  of  the  French  Government. — These 
results  were  deep,  enduring,  and  possessed  of  a  power 
of  rapid  growth.  Against  them  the  French  monarchy 
had  only  the  ephemeral  prestige  of  a  victorious  war  to 
oppose.  There  immediately  followed  the  financial  crisis 
to  which  the  government  had  so  long  been   hurrying. 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  63 

After  the  dismissal  of  Turgot,  matters  went  from 
bad  to  worse.  The  respectable  Necker,  though  he  did 
something  towards  bringing  order  into  the  accounts, 
relied  chiefly  on  credit  to  save  the  bankrupt  state. 
After  him  the  light-hearted  Calonne  strove  to  give  the 
government  the  semblance  of  buoyancy  by  a  great 
display  of  extravagance.  But  still  the  annual  deficit 
and  the  load  of  debt  increased,  and  both  statesmen 
found  themselves  forced  to  recur  to  the  plans  of  Turgot. 
To  Necker  this  yielding  to  the  inevitable  brought  dis- 
missal, as  it  had  to  his  great  predecessor.  Calonne's 
fall,  however,  was  accompanied  with  peculiar  circum- 
stances. When  his  fatuous  policy  of  reckless  expendi- 
ture became  no  longer  possible,  and  fundamental  reform 
was  imperative,  he  shrank  from  employing  the  doubtful 
services  of  royal  edicts,  and  advised  the  king  to  convoke 
an  assembly  of  notables,  a  device  not  unknown  to  history 
since  the  decay  of  the  States-General. 

Conduct  of  the  Notables. — This  body,  composed 
for  the  most  part  of  members  of  the  privileged  classes, 
though  it  contained  a  liberal  element,  proved  captious 
and  unmanageable.  It  refused  to  be  the  medium  of 
reforms,  or  to  relieve  the  king  of  any  responsibility  in 
his  perilous  dilemma.  But  it  gave  decided  expression 
to  a  feeling  which  had  been  gaining  strength  for  some 
time.  It  declared  itself  to  be  no  representative  of  the 
nation,  being  only  a  collection  of  the  king's  nominees, 
and  therefore  without  the  power  to  authorize  new  taxes. 
By  implication  the  States-General  were  declared  the 
proper  dispensers  of  extraordinary  supplies. 

Conduct  of  the  Parliaments. — Disappointed  by  the 
restiveness  of  his  assembly,  and  hated  by  the  court  for 
his  tergiversation,  Calonne  retired  from  office.  His 
successor  abandoned  his  experiment,  and  returned  to 
the  old  method  of  taxation  with  the  sanction  of  the 


64  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

parliaments.  In  June,  1787,  five  edicts  were  submitted 
to  the  parliament  of  Paris  for  registration,  two  of  which 
imposed  new  taxes,  while  the  remaining  three  provided 
for  the  commutation  of  forced  labour,  free  trade  in 
grain,  and  the  establishment  of  provincial  assemblies 
throughout  the  country,  with  ramifications  in  the  district 
and  village.  These  latter  were  registered,  and  thus  in  all 
the  innocence  of  blind  inexperience  the  Revolution  was 
inaugurated  in  the  provinces.  Over  the  two  first  a  heated 
struggle  ensued.  The  parliament  remonstrated  in  the 
language  of  the  philosophers,  thinly  disguised  by  cita- 
tions from  history.  The  dispute  was  promptly  taken 
up  by  the  remaining  twelve  parliaments  of  France,  and 
elicited  from  them  the  same  kind  of  response.  The 
king  then  exiled  the  Paris  magistracy  to  Troyes.  Finally, 
he  issued  edicts  which  virtually  suppressed  all  the  parlia- 
ments of  the  realm  by  decreeing  a  judicial  reform  similar, 
in  many  respects,  to  the  improvements  in  the  administra- 
tion of  justice  afterwards  secured  by  the  Revolution. 
And  now  was  reiterated  in  determined  accents  a  demand 
for  the  summoning  of  the  States-General.  At  last  the 
king  was  obliged  to  give  way  to  his  recalcitrant  magi- 
strates. His  edicts  and  ministers  were  abandoned  at 
the  same  time  that  the  parliaments  were  reinstated,  and 
a  definite  promise  was  given  to  convoke  the  national 
council  of  old. 

Union  of  the  Orders  in  Dauphiny. — The  incident 
which  hurried  the  king  to  give  this  pledge  and  to 
renounce  arbitrary  measures,  was  very  portentous  for 
the  immediate  future.  In  Dauphiny  the  three  orders  of 
nobility,  priesthood,  and  commons  met  together,  declared 
themselves  the  estates  of  the  province,  which  had  long 
been  suspended,  and  passed  resolutions  demanding  that 
their  provincial  constitution  should  be  restored  with 
double   representation   of  the   commons.     Their   mere 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  65 

discontent  differed  not  from  the  complaints  expressed 
by  the  separate  orders  all  over  the  country  at  this  time 
of  general  excitement.  Everywhere  the  nobles  were  in 
the  forefront  of  seditious  agitation,  everywhere  the 
clergy  gave  their  sanction  to  treasonable  utterances, 
everywhere  the  citizens  took  part  with  those  who  resisted 
the  king,  everywhere,  in  short,  the  government  met 
with  hostile  demonstrations.  But  this  spontaneous 
fusion  of  the  three  orders  showed  that  the  old  power  of 
the  Crown  was  on  the  brink  of  destruction.  Though 
the  French  monarchy  had  been  greatly  aided  in  its  rise 
to  autocracy  by  inventing  a  standing  army,  it  had  never 
reposed  on  a  military  basis.  Neither  the  police  nor  the 
soldiery — if  we  except  the  foreign  mercenaries — afforded 
it  independent  support.  They  were  instruments  per- 
taining to  the  peculiar  social  order  from  which  the 
monarchy  derived  power.  They  were  constantly  useful 
in  suppressing  brigandage  and  bread  riots,  but  they  did 
not  form  an  independent  source  of  authority.  They 
ever  remained  a  part  of  French  society,  and  contained 
within  themselves  the  same  divisions  and  discontents 
that  vexed  the  nation.  The  monarchy's  real  founda- 
tions were  formed  by  the  conflicting  interests  and  un- 
equable organization  of  its  subjects.  If,  for  a  common 
purpose,  these  subjects  forgot  their  antagonism,  and 
together  withstood  its  decrees,  the  ground  was  cut 
from  beneath  it,  and  its  whole  structure  tottered. 
Hence  the  eagerness  of  the  government  to  avoid 
giving  further  incentives  to  coalitions  like  that  in 
Dauphiny. 

General  Hostility  towards  the  Government. — 
And,  indeed,  the  situation  demanded  the  utmost  pru- 
dence. During  the  recent  events,  aversion  to  the 
government  had  become  an  unreasoning  passion.  The 
assembly  of  notables  was  loudly  applauded  for  resisting 


66  HISTORY  OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

the  king's  proposals,  though  these  were  wholly  in  favour 
of  the  people.  The  parliaments  had  won  immense 
popularity  in  their  endeavours  to  thwart  the  beneficent 
schemes  of  the  Crown.  Redress  of  grievances  was  for- 
gotten in  a  feverish  desire  to  place  the  state  on  a  new 
and  sounder  basis.  The  doctrine  of  the  sovereignty  of 
the  people  was  discussed  and  developed  in  all  directions 
with  an  impetuosity  which  defied  the  Censure.  Nothing 
is  more  difficult  than  to  estimate  the  influence  of  ideas 
on  a  community.  Like  motives  in  the  individual,  they 
can  only  be  measured  by  results  ;  like  all  mental  pro- 
cesses, they  develop  in  secret,  as  if  by  unconscious  cere- 
bration. They  constantly  belie  the  most  careful  estimate 
of  their  logical  significance.  When  all  possible  weight 
has  been  granted  to  the  French  intellectual  movement 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  every  aggravating  cir- 
cumstance has  been  taken  into  consideration,  historians 
can  only  account  for  this  antimonarchical  ebullition  by 
lame  references  to  latent  feelings  of  suspicion  which 
protracted  misgovernment  had  generated  in  the  minds 
of  the  people. 

The  Revolution  not  due  to  the  Misery  of  the 
People. — The  glib  explanation  which  wholly  attributes 
the  outburst  of  the  French  Revolution  to  the  misery  of 
the  people  is  as  near  a  falsehood  as  a  partial  and  inade- 
quate explanation  can  be.  In  point  of  fact,  the  French 
masses  were  not  worse  off  than  their  brethren  in  other 
continental  countries.  In  many  respects  they  were 
exceptionally  well  situated.  In  general,  it  will  be  found 
that  their  advantages  were  powerful  causes  in  kindling 
the  Revolution,  and  that  the  movement  most  readily 
gained  admittance  wherever  in  Europe  the  greatest 
immunity  from  hardship  was  enjoyed.  It  cannot  be  too 
often  repeated  that  the  French  Revolution  was  not  a  con- 
vulsive struggle  of  a  people  tortured  beyond  endurance. 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  67 

It  was  the  collapse  of  an  outworn  social  order;  and 
it  happened  to  be  French  only  because  in  France 
maturity  had  most  nearly  approached  decay.  And  this 
implies  that,  on  the  whole,  the  lot  of  the  French  people 
was  preferable  to  that  of  the  more  backward  nations, 
that  the  French  peasant  had  become  more  free  from  the 
constraints  and  obligations  of  feudalism  than  were  the 
peasantry  on  the  rest  of  the  Continent* 

Feudal  Burdens  of  the  French  Peasantry. — Yet 
the  vexations  of  the  multitude  were  grievous  enough  to 
be  a  grave  danger  to  the  state.  Notwithstanding  the 
virtual  extinction  of  serfage,  the  almost  total  abolition 
of  seignorial  authority,  and  the  limitation  of  forced 
services  and  dues,  the  peasantry  of  France  smarted 
under  a  number  of  evils  which  were  none  the  less  exas- 
perating because  they  were  but  the  shadows  of  their 
original  forms,  and  could  be  seen  in  far  harsher  shapes 
elsewhere.  Though  the  lord  of  the  manor  no  longer 
resided  among  them  as  an  hereditary  governor,  they 
were  still  often  obliged  to  tolerate  the  ravages  of  his 
pigeons  and  game ;  to  bring  their  corn  to  his  mill,  their 
grapes  to  his  wine-press,  and  their  dough  to  his  oven ; 
to  pay  toll  at  his  bridges,  to  give  heavy  fees  on  the 
transfer  of  property,  and  to  submit  to  a  variety  of  minor 
exactions.  Further,  though  a  great  number  owned  the 
land  they  cultivated,  they  were  unable  to  put  themselves 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  charges  adhering  to  it,  or  to 
escape  the  requisitions  of  the  Church.  The  absence  of 
the  seignors  threw  the  collection  of  these  payments  and 
dues  into  the  hands  of  agents  or  lessees,  destitute  of  the 

♦  En  resume,  dit  un  contemporain,  "  I'oppression  etait  moins  forte  en 
France  qu'en  Espagne,  qu'en  Portugal,  qu'en  Autriche,  qu'en  Prusse,  qu'en 
Turquie  ;  cependant  ces  contrees  sont  restees  fort  tranquilles,  et  la  France 
a  fait  sa  revolution."  C'est  precisement  pour  cela  qu'elle  la  fit. — Albert 
Sorely  quoting  Adrien  Lezay,  1797. 


68  HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

feudal  sentiment,  and  anxious  only  to  secure  the  highest 
returns.* 

Pressure  of  Taxation  on  the  Peasantry. — But  it 
was  from  the  central  government  that  the  most  crushing 
demands  came.  Through  the  intendants,  the  districts 
were  loaded  with  a  certain  weight  of  taxation,  a  certain 
levy  for  the  militia,  and  a  certain  quantity  of  forced 
labour  on  the  roads  and  other  works.  In  themselves 
sufficiently  injurious  to  the  prosperity  of  the  country, 
these  exactions  were  distributed  and  imposed  in  such  a 
manner  that  they  could  not  fail  to  cripple  industry  and 
mock  honest  effort.  By  three  ways  they  impoverished 
the  people.  They  discouraged  self-help  by  putting  a 
premium  on  squalor  and  indigence ;  aided  by  the  local 
tolls  and  customs,  they  hampered  labour  and  exchange  ; 
and  they  directly  deprived  the  labourer  of  a  preposter- 
ously large  portion  of  his  earnings.  Yet  only  a  fraction 
of  these  imposts  reached  the  king's  exchequer.  Many 
of  the  taxes  were  collected  through  farmers,  who  secured 
a  handsome  profit,  while  all  the  imposts  were  levied  by 
very  expensive  machinery,  t  But  the  worst  part  of  the 
system  was  the  scale  of  exemptions,  which  protected 
from  the  flsc  those  who  could  best  pay.  Vauban, 
for  example,  in  his  unpalatable  representations  to 
Louis  XIV.,  counted  eighteen  classes  exempt  from  the 
taille.     It  was  this  evil  which  blocked  the  way  to  every 

*  So  precarious  and  invidious  was  the  right  to  levy  such  tolls  that  they 
could  be  bought  for  ten  years'  purchase,  while  land  was  worth  thirty  years' 
purchase  and  upwards. 

t  The  only  gainers  by  the  expensive,  unequal,  arbitrary,  and  intricate 
method  of  levying  the  taxes,  said  Hume,  "are  the  Financiers,  a  race  of 
men  rather  odious  to  the  nobility  and  the  whole  kingdom.  If  a  prince  or 
minister,  therefore,  should  arise,  endowed  with  sufficient  discernment  to 
know  his  own  and  the  public  interest,  and  with  sufficient  force  of  mind  to 
break  through  the  ancient  customs,  we  might  expect  to  see  these  abuses 
remedied  ;  in  which  case,  the  differences  between  that  absolute  government 
and  our  free  one,  would  not  appear  so  considerable  as  at  present." 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  69 

adequate  reform,  and  rendered  nugatory  all  other  im- 
provements in  the  financial  administration.  As  long 
as  all  the  nobles,  officials,  and  clergy,  and  many  inde- 
pendent citizens,  evaded  a  fair  share  of  contribution  to 
the  revenue  of  the  state,  no  fiscal  scheme  could  be 
other  than  a  systematic  tyranny  to  the  poor  man. 

Condition  of  the  Peasant  Proprietors — One  in- 
dustrial passion  alone  this  unhopeful  lot  failed  to  quench 
in  the  breast  of  the  French  rustic.  His  longing  to  possess 
a  bit  of  the  soil  remained  as  a  motive  to  thrift  and  exer- 
tion. In  order  to  become  the  owner  of  a  patch  of  ground 
he  would  toil  and  hoard  with  invincible  pertinacity.  But 
when  a  landowner  he  was  still  unable  to  Hft  his  head. 
He  lacked  more  than  ever  incentives  to  enterprise  and 
industry  now  that  unprivileged  proprietorship  marked 
him  as  the  special  victim  of  feudal  charges  and  the 
royal  fisc.  His  farming,  we  are  continually  told,  was 
unskilful  in  management  and  starved  by  want  of  capital ; 
his  condition  beggarly  and  degraded.  But  the  truth  is 
that  his  want  of  skill  was  simply  want  of  education  and 
of  opportunity  to  enjoy  the  fair  reward  of  intelligent 
exertion.  His  dearth  of  capital,  at  a  time  when  agri- 
cultural operations  were  conducted  exclusively  by  means 
of  rural  labour,  was  nothing  more  than  insufficiency  of 
produce  left  him  by  his  superiors  to  sustain  strength 
and  a  cheerful  spirit  of  toil,  to  form  a  fund  against  the 
calamities  of  bad  seasons,  to  pay  the  country  craftsmen 
for  proper  tools,  and  to  keep  the  necessary  proportion 
of  live  stock  on  his  farm.*     He  purposely  assumed  a 

*  This  last  point  especially  manifested  the  ignorance  of  penury.  "  An 
advantageous  rotation  of  crops,"  said  Young,  "and  that  arrangement  of  a 
farm  which  makes  cattle  necessary  to  corn,  and  corn  necessary  to  cattle, 
on  which  the  profit  from  arable  land  much  depends,  is  what  the  French 
have  hardly  an  idea  of.  In  their  practice  it  is  never  seen,  and  in  their 
books  it  is  never  to  be  read."  "  In  Normandy,  the  Bas  Poitou,  Limousin, 
Quercy,  and  Guienne,  the  importance  of  cattle  is  pretty  well  understood  ; 


70  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

general  appearance  of  brutish  destitution  in  order  to 
evade  the  taxes  arbitrarily  assessed  on  all  kinds  of 
property.  It  was,  indeed,  a  horrifying  revelation  to 
Rousseau  when,  having  strayed  into  French  territory, 
he  found  a  hospitable  peasant  obliged  to  enjoy  furtively 
the  better  rewards  of  his  industry.  Since  that  time  the 
small  French  landowners  have  greatly  increased,  both 
through  the  seizures  and  confiscations  at  the  Revolution, 
and  through  normal  means.  Hence  their  circumstances 
are  frequently  referred  to  for  information  respecting  the 
merits  of  a  peasant  proprietary.  But  seldom  is  it  re- 
membered that  the  indispensable  conditions  on  which 
such  a  class  can  long  remain  prosperous — a  hearty  spirit 
of  neighbourly  co-operation  and  frank  dealing,  the  ready 
acceptance  of  all  available  improvements — were  in  many 
parts  precluded  for  generations  by  the  habits  of  suspicion 
and  ignorance  engendered  under  the  ancient  regime. 

Diversity  of  conditions  in  France. — This  sombre 
account  is,  of  course,  but  a  rough  generalization  which 
may  serve  to  indicate  one  of  the  chief  conditions  of  the 
Revolution.  In  a  country  of  so  varied  a  character  as 
France  possessed  at  this  period,  every  assertion,  to  be 
quite  exact,  would  require  interminable  qualifications 
and  restrictions.  Composed  of  a  number  of  provinces 
acquired  at  different  times  and  under  different  circum- 
stances, the  realm  contained  a  multitude  of  dissimilar 
institutions,  tenures,  and  customs,  by  which  the  in- 
fluences of  feudal  tradition  and  the  central  government 
were  variously  modified.  It  would  be  possible  to  draw 
examples  of  notable  prosperity  as  well  as  of  appalling 
misery  by  confining  attention  to  Languedoc  on  the  one 
hand,  and  to  Auvergne  and  Dauphiny  on   the   other. 

in  some  districts  very  well.  In  all  the  rest  of  the  kingdom  .  .  .  there 
would  in  eighteen-twentieths  of  it  be  scarcely  any  cattle  at  all,  were  it  not 
for  the  practice  of  ploughing  with  them." 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  71 

But  on  the  whole  it  appears  that,  manifold  as  were 
their  grievances,  the  French  peasantry  had  not  lost  all 
patience,  as  they  certainly  had  not  lost  all  spirit.  The 
initiative  to  their  insurrection  is  not  to  be  found  in  their 
hardships,  though  these  provided  ample  incitement  to 
anarchy  and  revenge  when  once  resignation  and  habit 
had  been  disturbed  from  without.  In  all  probability 
they  would  have  waited  quietly  for  relief  till  reform 
had  made  way  in  the  administration. 

French  Peasants  incited  to  discontent. — Reform, 
however,  stumbled  fatally,  and  the  long-suffering  spirit 
was  prematurely  unsettled.  Though  separated  by  a 
great  distance  from  the  upper  classes,  the  peasants  did 
not  escape  the  contagion  of  the  reigning  discontent. 
They  did  not  fail  to  understand  somewhat  of  the  new 
ideas  which  were  discussed  wherever  any  mental  activity 
existed.  As  the  philanthropic  notions  became  accepted, 
they  were  frequently  addressed  by  their  superiors  on 
the  iniquitous  injustice  to  which  they  were  a  prey.  So 
long  had  it  been  since  the  people  had  taken  part  in 
national  affairs,  that  only  here  and  there  did  any  one 
suspect  that  perhaps  the  unfortunate  masses  might  put 
to  dangerous  use  the  arguments  of  indiscreet  innovators. 
In  the  preambles  to  the  edicts  of  the  king  were  some- 
times drawn  up  elaborate  indictments  against  the 
privileged  and  capitalist  classes.  The  wrongs  of  the 
poor  became  a  favourite  weapon  in  the  disputes  between 
public  functionaries. 

Disturbing  Effect  of  Administrative  Changes. — 
When,  therefore,  the  industrial  reforms  of  Turgot  were 
promulgated,  only  to  be  partially  withdrawn,  and  the 
relations  of  employers  and  employed  became  seriously 
dislocated,  the  people  were  prepared  to  infer  the  possi- 
bility and  need  of  change  to  their  behoof.  Later,  when 
the  edict  for  the  reconstitution  of  provincial  government 


n  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

was  enforced,  the  interference  with  the  old  order  was 
so  far-reaching  that  the  minds  of  all  were  quite  un- 
balanced. Many  evidences  of  active  dislike  to  wealth 
and  rank  appeared  in  the  experiment  of  introducing  a 
large  measure  of  self-government  in  a  nation  where 
numberless  distinctions  and  privileges  at  once  forbade 
social  harmony  and  administrative  uniformity.  The 
evils  of  inequality  before  the  law  and  the  fisc  were 
never  more  prominent  than  in  this  attempt  to  bestow 
public  freedom  on  men  who  could  not  form  a  parish 
meeting  without  including  a  variety  of  conditions  which 
defeated  all  schemes  for  a  just  apportionment  of  burdens, 
and  excluded  all  chances  of  fair-minded  discussion.  If 
Frenchmen  have  since  that  critical  time  shown  them- 
selves more  eager  for  equality  than  freedom,  they  can 
at  least  plead  their  terrible  experience  of  an  unequable 
dispensation.  They  can  at  least  point  to  the  obstacles 
then  opposed  to  their  assumption  of  liberty,  as  pallia- 
tives to  their  impatient  attitude  towards  the  real  nature 
of  things. 

Character  of  the  Vices  of  the  French  Nobility. — 
And  while  the  condition  of  the  peasantry  is  not  to  be 
hastily  pronounced  irremediable  by  regular  means,  the 
character  of  the  nobility  is  not  to  be  unreservedly  con- 
demned. The  nobles  were  not,  as  we  have  said,  monsters 
of  oppression.  They  were  not  cruel  by  nature,  though 
their  extravagances  and  social  habits  made  them  hard 
landlords.  They  reluctantly  tendered  total  submission 
to  the  monarchy,  though  they  made  their  appointed 
homage  to  the  throne  as  pleasurable  as  possible.  They 
were  careless  of  their  territorial  duties  since  they  had 
been  deprived  of  political  influence.  They  were  absorbed 
in  courtly  vanities  since  they  had  been  compelled  to 
flock  around  their  master.  Thus,  without  being  much 
worse  than  their  fellow-men,  they  were  engulfed  in  a 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  73 

vortex  of  fatuities  and  dissipation.  They  were  profli- 
gates and  prodigals,  but  they  were  not  miscreants. 
They  exacted  the  last  farthing  from  their  dependants, 
they  made  enormous  demands  on  the  public  funds,  they 
monopolized  all  lucrative  offices  and  sinecures,  they 
perpetually  turned  the  government  into  a  mere  play- 
thing of  favouritism,  corruption,  and  intrigue  ;  but  their 
natures  never  lost  common  generosity,  though  their 
sense  of  duty  was  obscured  by  the  methodized  frivolity 
of  their  lives.  The  vices  of  the  order  were,  in  fact, 
more  dangerous  to  the  monarchy,  which  had  corrupted 
it,  than  damning  to  the  persons  who  possessed  them. 
The  history  of  its  demoralization  is  a  conspicuous  illus- 
tration of  one  aspect  of  Montesquieu's  dictum,  "  La 
monarchie  se  perd,  lorsque  le  prince,  rapportant  tout 
uniquement  a  lui,  appelle  I'^tat  a  sa  capitale,  la  capitale 
a  sa  cour,  et  la  cour  a  sa  seule  personne." 

The  Nobility  and  the  Revolutionary  Ideas. — 
Accordingly,  it  was  only  natural  that  with  a  turn  of 
fashion  the  French  nobles  took  keen  interest  in  scien- 
tific discovery,  granted  the  savant  a  high  social  position, 
then  came  to  be  less  exclusive  and  more  simple  in  their 
manners,  and  finally  embraced  the  democratic  theories. 
Without  their  conversion,  the  revolutionary  principles 
would  hardly  have  ripened  in  time  to  interfere  at  the 
state's  financial  crisis.  It  mattered  little  that  the  doc- 
trines were  their  natural  foes.  Long  separation  from 
public  affairs  had  made  them  incapable  of  detecting  the 
true  tendencies  of  social  movements.  They  knew  that 
their  novel  diversion  menaced  the  power  of  the  mon- 
archy, and  they  were  well  content  that  it  should  do  so ; 
but  they  heeded  not  the  accompanying  consequences  to 
themselves.  Nor  was  this  blindness  peculiar  to  them. 
The  same  want  of  vision  was  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able features  of  the  transactions  which  introduced  the 


74  HISTORY    OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

Revolution.  It  characterized  all  classes  at  this  time, 
when  rapid  social  changes  had  not,  as  now,  trained  men 
to  forecast,  perhaps  too  nervously,  the  drift  of  events  in 
relation  to  their  personal  interests.  So  they  cherished 
their  perilous  notions  in  as  good  faith  as  the  rest  of  the 
society.  As  the  day  of  reckoning  approached,  they 
became  more  and  more  awake  to  the  opportunities  for 
good  which  they  possessed.  On  the  eve  of  the  Revolu- 
tion they  were  sincerely  casting  about  for  means  to 
benefit  the  people,  and  to  satisfy  their  new-born  feelings 
of  humanity,  which  were  none  the  less  sincere  because 
they  were  accompanied  with  much  idyllic  nonsense.  It 
seems  strange  that  they  should  fall  just  when  they  were 
growing  more  worthy  of  their  position.  But  stranger 
still  is  it,  that  one  of  the  chief  proximate  causes  of  their 
ruin  was  this  very  improvement  itself. 

Decay  of  the  Old  Aristocracy Unfitted  to  save 

themselves,  they  could  claim  no  assistance  from  others. 
Many  of  the  old  families  were  destitute,  and  all  were 
deep  in  debt.  In  vain  had  they  contrived  numberless 
modes  of  taxing  the  state.  The  original  aristocracy 
sank  lower  and  lower,  and  forfeited  all  the  consideration 
which  might  otherwise  have  remained  to  it.  The  ranks 
of  the  nobility  were  filled  with  recruits  from  the  middle 
classes,  who  had  purchased  titles  and  privileges  belong- 
ing to  the  thousands  of  vendible  offices  retailed  by  the 
impecunious  state.  Nobility  thus  became  distinguished 
by  immunities  from  taxation  instead  of  by  ancient  line- 
age. It  became  therefore  a  point  of  honour,  rather  than 
of  avarice,  for  the  class  to  avoid  contributing  to  the 
support  of  the  government.  When  this  fraudulent  per- 
version of  an  aristocratic  institution  became  established, 
all  its  claims  to  respect  vanished.  The  invidious  ele- 
ments of  rank  alone  remained.  Want  of  true  dignity 
was  supplied  by  arrogance,  want  of  real  influence  by 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  75 

offensive  insistence  on  unjust  privileges  and  distinctions. 
The  middle  classes  felt  acutely  aggrieved  by  the  dis- 
dain of  ennobled  parvenus,  and  rebelled  against  paying 
for  their  immunities.  The  mulcted  peasant  had  not 
fallen  so  low  as  to  suffer  unresented  the  contemptuous 
demeanour  of  his  unprofitable  superiors.  After  the 
publication  of  Necker's  compte  rendu — a  somewhat  un- 
candid  document  received  with  immense  curiosity — they 
also  knew  whom  they  had  to  thank  for  the  great  weight 
of  taxation  and  the  constant  suspension  of  payment  of 
the  state's  debts.  Rossbach  had  already  shown  them 
that  the  plea  of  military  service  was  a  sorry  apology  for 
the  existence  of  a  dissolute  noblesse. 

Importance  of  the  Middle  Classes The  middle 

classes  were,  moreover,  growing  conscious  of  new  im- 
portance, and  they  daily  aspired  to  become  something 
more  than  mere  drudges  in  the  government  of  the 
country  that  they  enriched.  In  the  last  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  trade  and  industry  advanced  with  a 
rapidity  till  then  unknown.  Plebeian  wealth  accumulated 
faster  than  saleable  titles  could  corrupt  it.  Though  the 
administration  of  the  state  was  dependent  on  the  middle 
class  for  capable  men  of  business,  the  nobles  pertinaci- 
ously barred  the  way  to  the  more  honourable  positions. 
In  the  mean  time  the  spirit  of  independence,  which  the 
Jansenist  parliaments  had  once  opposed  to  despotism 
and  Jesuistry,  broke  forth  and  flooded  an  immensely 
wider  area  than  the  corporations  of  hereditary  magis- 
trates. All  who  were  engaged  in  manufactures,  com- 
merce, estate  management,  finance,  law,  medicine,  and 
the  civil  service,  together  with  the  whole  of  the  ill-used 
lower  clergy,  shook  off  their  indifference  to  political 
affairs,  and  under  the  name  of  the  Third  Estate  began 
to  set  up  claims  for  a  share  in  the  government. 

Formidable  Character  of  the  Dangerous  Classes. — 


76  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

Such  being  the  political  attitude  of  the  different  classes 
in  the  state,  it  was  inevitable  that  some  great  organic 
change  would  take  place  spontaneously  as  the  infirmi- 
ties of  the  monarchy  became  destructive  of  all  govern- 
ment. Many  dangers  are  inseparable  from  such 
moments ;  but  there  existed  a  peculiar  source  of  in- 
stability to  French  society  at  this  time.  Owing  to  the 
obstacles  surrounding  sober  industry,  to  oppressive 
game  laws,  and  to  the  countless  temptations  held  out  to 
illicit  dealing  by  the  trading  regulations  spread  over  old 
France,  there  existed  an  enormous  number  of  vagabonds, 
poachers,  and  smugglers,  who  formed  a  serious  menace 
against  order  in  a  time  of  scarcity.  The  country,  since 
it  was  divested  of  its  more  substantial  inhabitants  by  the 
attractions  of  the  towns  and  the  disadvantages  attending 
agricultural  life,  was  unable  of  itself  to  cope  with  mendi- 
cancy or  to  suppress  vagrancy.  Hence  there  was  always 
quartered  at  large  on  society  a  vast  army  of  ruffians, 
which  the  most  energetic  efforts  of  the  government — 
and  very  energetic  efforts  had  not  been  wanting — failed 
entirely  to  disperse. 

Paris  the  Centre  of  National  Life. — But  brigand- 
age might  have  prevailed  in  the  country,  and  riot  in  the 
towns,  without  shaking  the  state,  if  the  government  had 
not  been  confined  to  a  centre  which  was  also  a  favourite 
resort  of  the  dangerous  classes.  Paris,  unfortunately, 
was  by  that  time  not  only  the  seat  of  government  and 
public  opinion,  but  the  magazine  of  a  large  quantity  of 
the  material  from  which  mobs  are  made.  The  adminis- 
tration, though  it  worked  through  many  subordinates, 
was  very  highly  centralized.  The  provinces  were  accus- 
tomed to  look  to  the  supreme  head  for  all  initiative, 
and  seldom  ventured  to  act  on  their  own  responsibility. 
Such  was  the  result  of  the  monarchy's  systematic  sup- 
pression of  all  provincial  independence ;  such  was  the 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  77 

most  instructive  and  painful  example  of  another  aspect 
of  Montesquieu's  aphorism. 

Paris  the  Resort  of  the  Dangerous  Classes. — The 
capital  was  also  by  far  the  most  important  industrial 
town.  Its  trade  in  articles  of  luxury  and  taste,  which 
almost  monopolized  the  European  market,  afforded 
employment  to  an  immense  number  of  artisans,  who 
were  further  attracted  by  a  freedom  from  restraints  not 
to  be  found  elsewhere  in  the  kingdom.  This  large 
manufacturing  population  had  repeatedly  shown  itself 
prone  to  turbulence  when  industry  was  disordered,  and 
filled  with  the  dangerous  conviction  that  from  the  king 
proceeded  all  weal  and  woe.  Here,  then,  was  a  con- 
genial retreat  for  all  the  starving  ruffians  of  the  country 
round  ;  here  thronged  outlaws  from  other  countries,  pro- 
fessional criminals,  and  all  who  cadged  for  a  livelihood 
in  a  rich  and  extensive  town ;  here  was  congregated  a 
rabble  glad  to  follow  any  one  who  would  lead  them  to 
plunder ;  here  dwelt  thousands  of  ignorant  toilers,  ready 
to  listen  to  the  sophisms  and  temptings  of  demagogues 
at  the  first  pinch  of  distress.  By  ill  chance  the  per- 
turbation attending  the  summons  of  the  States-General 
was  aggravated  by  great  scarcity  of  food.  In  July,  1788, 
a  terrible  tempest  destroyed  the  crops  in  a  great  part  of 
France,  and  especially  in  the  districts  round  Paris. 
The  following  winter  was  of  unequalled  severity.  Very 
inadequate  supplies  were  obtainable  from  abroad,  owing 
to  recent  short  harvests  and  the  demands  made  by  the 
war  in  Eastern  Europe.  The  people  suffered  great 
privations,  and  in  Paris  the  distress  was  particularly 
severe.  The  disaster  elicited  great  largesses  from  the 
rich,  but  the  populace  of  the  capital  indulged  in  san- 
guinary bread  riots,  and,  mindful  oi  \hQ  pacte  de  fajnine^ 
attributed  the  dearth  to  the  nefarious  schemes  of  the 
court  and  monopolists. 


/ 


78  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

Widespread  Disturbance. — As  the  time  for  the 
meeting  of  the  States-General  approached,  ominous 
indications  of  anarchy  appeared  in  the  provinces.  In 
the  parish  and  the  district  the  whole  system  of  taxation 
had  been  brought  under  discussion,  and  a  statement  of 
grievances  had  been  debated  at  the  request  of  the 
assembly  of  the  province.  Finally,  a  similar  statement 
had  to  be  drawn  up  by  the  command  of  the  king  for 
the  instruction  of  the  coming  national  parliament.  A 
belief  in  the  speedy  redress  of  wrongs  was  thus  en- 
gendered, just  when  famine  was  inflicting  the  worst 
pangs  of  a  stinted  subsistence.  Hence  spontaneous 
anarchy  throughout  nearly  all  France.  Storehouses  of 
grain  were  plundered,  corn  dealers  were  robbed  and 
murdered,  game  preserves  were  invaded,  and  dues  of 
all  kinds  were  repudiated.  In  the  capital  the  dis- 
turbances speedily  took  the  form  of  political  tumults. 
Against  such  universal  turbulence  the  police  were  im- 
potent, and  military  force  was  necessary  to  overcome 
the  rioters.  But  at  first  the  army  was  very  sparingly 
employed.  Anarchy  was  allowed  to  gather  strength 
till  only  the  most  determined  onslaughts  of  the  military 
could  have  restored  order.  By  that  time  the  soldiers 
had  been  seduced  from  their  duty,  and  either  rendered 
neutral  or  enrolled  among  the  insurgents. 

Reforming  Character  of  the  States-General. — On 
May  5,  1789,  the  States-General  met  at  Versailles. 
Suddenly  awakened  from  a  slumber  of  two  centuries, 
they  appeared  clothed  in  much  of  their  mediaeval  ap- 
parel. As  of  old,  they  came  divided  into  three  bodies, 
representing  the  nobles,  clergy,  and  commons,  and  each 
body  brought  with  it  the  cahiers^  or  instructions,  which 
were  to  guide  it  in  the  discharge  of  its  trust.  But  in 
his  heart  every  member  was  meditating  on  the  dreams 
of  a  new  era,  and  the  cahiers  were  filled  with  schemes 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  79 

of  revolution.  The  old  forms  were  merely  vehicles  of 
a  demand  for  an  entire  reconstruction  of  the  state. 
Even  the  nobility,  while  strongly  insisting  on  its 
honorary  distinctions,  recommended  radical  reforms  in 
pursuance  of  the  inalienable  rights  of  man^  and  offered 
suggestions  for  liberating  the  lower  classes  from  in- 
equitable burdens,  personal  indignities,  and  involuntary 
ignorance. 

Initial  Disagreement  between  the  Orders. — Ac- 
cording to  ancient  usage,  the  three  orders  should  have 
deliberated  and  voted  separately,  but  every  one  felt 
that  the  times  were  gone  by  when  the  third  estate 
could  be  placed  at  the  mercy  of  a  coalition  of  the  nobles 
with  the  clergy.  In  point  of  fact,  the  government  had 
doubled  the  representatives  of  the  commons,  a  pro- 
vision which  would  have  been  meaningless  if  they  had 
intended  the  assembly  to  vote  by  orders  and  not  per 
capita.  Necker,  who  had  been  recalled  on  the  dismissal 
of  Lomenie  de  Brienne,  advised  this  measure,  but  he 
hesitated  to  announce  authoritatively  to  the  clergy  and 
nobles  that  they  must  abandon  their  former  advantageous 
position.  Unfortunately  the  nobles  and  higher  clergy 
regarded  with  great  repugnance  any  plan  of  treating  on 
terms  of  equality  with  their  inferiors.  The  pride  of 
rank  grew  yet  more  exclusive  when  brought  face  to 
face  with  the  plebian  throng.  Many  of  the  Tiers  ^tat 
were  no  better  than  the  pettifogging  lawyers  who  swarmed 
around  the  minutely  articulated  social  structure.  Very 
few  of  them  were  men  of  proved  capacity :  hardly  any 
of  the  government's  many  able  servants  had  a  seat. 
Some  men  of  conspicuous  ability  were  among  them, 
but  these  were  for  the  most  part  without  political  ex- 
perience. Before  this  motley  crowd  the  nobles  would 
renounce  none  of  their  prescriptive  advantages.  Hence, 
instead   of  proceeding   to   consider    measures   for    the 


\ 


80  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

immediate  relief  of  the  government,  the  States-General 
rushed  into  a  dispute  concerning  the  adaptation  of  its 
ancient  forms  to  present  conditions. 

The  National  Assembly  Declared,  June  17,  1789. 
— The  struggle  over  the  constitutional  question  proved 
fatal  to  the  constitution  itself.  Left  to  themselves,  the 
commons  opposed  for  a  time  a  passive  resistance  to  the 
pretensions  of  the  clergy  and  nobles,  and  then  declared 
themselves  the  National  Assembly.  Three  days  later, 
having  been  prevented  from  entering  their  hall,  they 
retired  to  a  neighbouring  tennis  court,  and  there  swore 
not  to  separate  till  they  had  created  a  new  constitution. 
From  a  committee  of  ways  and  means  the  states  were 
thus  turned  into  a  Constituent  Assembly.  The  conduct 
of  the  commons  was  precisely  in  accordance  with  the 
wishes  of  the  public,  and  many  of  the  other  orders  felt 
bound  to  follow  it.  Out  of  the  clergy  there  deserted  to 
them  the  cwh^  whose  wrongs  and  feelings  were  almost 
identical  with  those  of  the  Tiers  Etat,  together  with 
the  more  politic  of  the  bishops  ;  and  from  the  nobles 
many  of  the  more  enlightened  aristocracy  and  a  few 
seekers  after  popular  influence.  The  king,  however, 
while  expressing  his  willingness  to  place  in  the  hands 
of  the  States-General  the  affairs  of  the  monarchy, 
decreed  the  separation  of  the  orders.  In  other  words, 
he  acknowledged  the  supremacy  of  the  states,  but  pro- 
hibited the  National  Assembly.  He  practically  re- 
signed his  power  at  the  same  time  that  he  declared 
war  against  the  only  body  which  could  assume  it.  Yet 
he  would  not  resort  to  force,  and  he  left  the  rebellious 
assembly  at  battle  with  its  antagonists,  who  were  from 
this  time  royalists. 

Insurrection  in  Paris  and  the  Provinces. — This 
manoeuvre  disastrously  sharpened  the  hostility  between 
the  people  and  the  Crown.     The  consignment  of  the 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  81 

royal  claims  to  the  charge  of  those  who  desired  to  re- 
tain the  last  fragments  of  feudalism,  involved  a  change 
of  ministry  and  a  change  of  policy.  Though  compelled 
to  sink  for  the  time  its  main  contention,  and  to  join  the 
National  Assembly,  the  feudal  party  made  use  of  its 
alliance  with  the  king  to  give  him  new  ministers  in- 
clined to  adopt  more  spirited  measures  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  royal  authority  and  the  old  regime.  But 
its  acquisition  of  power  was  too  late  to  allow  it  to  do 
more  than  irritate  the  people  against  the  monarchy. 
The  army  had  grown  insubordinate,  the  mob  supreme. 
The  assembly  had  to  proceed  to  its  task  of  making  a 
constitution  amid  a  storm  of  popular  excitement  and 
tumultuous  outbreaks.  Paris  was  given  up  to  brutal 
riots.  The  Bastille  was  destroyed,  depots  of  arms  were 
sacked,  provision  stores  were  plundered,  and  unpopular 
personages  murdered.  In  the  country  the  disturbances 
took  the  form  of  veritable  Jacqueries.  Throughout 
almost  all  the  land  chateaux  were  blazing,  nobles  and 
gentry  were  robbed  or  killed,  government  officers  and 
tax-gatherers  were  put  to  flight.  The  people,  rendered 
wild  by  the  sudden  relaxation  of  constraint  and  obliga- 
tions, impatiently  anticipated  the  decisions  of  its  repre- 
sentatives by  plunging  into  a  frenzy  of  barbarous 
reprisal. 

The  Assembly  coerced  by  the  Mob. — Nor  did  the 
National  Assembly  prove  much  less  hasty  than  the 
nation.  On  the  night  of  August  4,  at  the  suggestion 
of  the  liberal  nobles,  almost  every  vestige  of  feudalism 
was  swept  away.  A  few  sittings  were  spent  in  putting 
into  form  of  law  this  counterpart  to  the  havoc  in  the 
provinces,  and  then  a  declaration  of  the  rights  of  man 
was  discussed  and  adopted,  which  recognized  the  claims 
of  the  people  to  interfere  in  the  business  of  government 
to  a  degree  suicidal  for  a  legislative  body  sitting  in  the 


82  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

vicinity  of  a  host  of  excited  insurgents.  Next  was 
planned  a  parliament  of  one  chamber,  founded  on  a 
very  low  franchise,  and  subject  only  to  a  suspensive 
veto  of  the  king  for  the  space  of  two  sessions.  By  this 
time  the  general  anarchy  had  invaded  the  assembly, 
and,  by  swaying  its  counsels,  was  gaining  strength  and 
diffusion.  The  debates  were  held  in  Paris,  after  the 
mob  had  taken  Louis  captive  on  the  occasion  of  a  panic 
produced  by  rumours  of  military  violence.  There  the 
august  body  was  constrained  and  brow-beaten  by  an 
organized  system  of  threats  and  uproar.  Side  by  side 
with  the  constituent  legislature,  stormed  and  declaimed 
gatherings  of  the  rabble  and  orators  of  the  mob.  The 
action  of  clubs,  not  unknown  in  the  later  years  of  the 
absolute  monarchy,  now  became  of  the  first  importance. 
The  Jacobins,  acquiring  their  dread  name  with  the  re- 
moval to  Paris,  had  recruited  an  obedient  though  un- 
disciplined army  in  the  metropolis.  Besides  being  the 
most  powerful  association  at  the  seat  of  the  political 
contest,  they  soon  possessed  in  all  parts  of  France 
affiliated  societies  which  implicitly  followed  the  word 
transmitted  from  headquarters.  In  the  name  of  the 
sovereign  people  and  the  rights  of  man,  all  that  was 
worthless  and  homeless  in  the  city  conspired  to  coerce 
the  moderate  party.  No  forms  of  decency  protected 
the  dignity  of  the  body,  no  efficient  police  guarded  the 
safety  of  its  members.  With  revolting  frankness  the 
ragged  band  brought  terrorism  to  bear  on  the  counsels 
which  were  to  determine  the  future  of  the  French  state, 
and  the  immediate  guidance  of  the  nation. 

Impotence  of  Conservative  Opinion. — This  kind 
of  policy  proved  eminently  successful.  Before  long, 
most  of  the  aristocracy — hunted,  threatened,  and  de- 
spoiled— ever  in  fear  of  murder — fled  beyond  the  fron- 
tier.    In  the  Constituent  Assembly  itself  the  apologists 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  83 

for  the  old  order  gradually  slunk  away;  the  voice  of 
those  who  knew  what  was  worth  retaining  from  the  past 
became  hushed.  Hence  legislation  which  was  hasty, 
crude,  and  imprudent  to  the  last  degree.  With  many 
drastic  correctives  for  traditional  abuse  went  violent 
provocatives  of  civil  and  religious  schism,  and  pitifully 
imperfect  provisions  for  the  maintenance  of  order. 

Persistence  of  Anarchy — On  the  completion  of 
the  constitution,  France  found  itself  at  a  crisis  im- 
measurably more  perilous  than  the  financial  difficulties 
which  had  opened  the  way  for  revolution.  In  addition 
to  bankruptcy,  there  now  threatened  intestine  strife, 
foreign  war,  and  general  disruption  of  all  social  bonds. 
The  new  system  of  taxation,  vitiated  by  excessive  bur- 
dens on  land,  had  neither  got  into  working  order  nor 
secured  respect  by  moral  or  physical  means ;  the  sales 
of  confiscated  property  had  not  covered  the  liabilities, 
as  had  been  expected,  and  many  claims  for  compensa- 
tion to  individuals  had  been  incurred  by  the  new 
changes  ;  while  the  reckless  multiplication  of  assignatSy 
though  they  levied  indirectly  and  disastrously  on  in- 
dustry a  tax  which  in  some  sense  indemnified  the 
revenue  for  the  evasion  of  the  proper  imposts,  was 
rapidly  exhausting  its  own  resources.  The  wanton 
overthrow  of  the  Church,  the  confiscation  of  its  posses- 
sions, the  dissolution  and  sale  of  the  monasteries,  and 
the  ecclesiastical  constitution  ordained  instead,  had 
brought  the  country  to  the  brink  of  civil  war.  The 
greater  part  of  the  clergy,  who  had  hitherto  been  trusty 
promoters  of  the  Revolution,  rebelled  against  the  secular 
management  of  ecclesiastical  affairs,  and  preferred  sus- 
pension to  swearing  allegiance  to  the  new  dispensation  ; 
while  the  peasantry,  terrified  by  their  warnings  against 
sacraments  from  spurious  authority,  recoiled  from  the 
unhallowed    ministrations   of   constitutional   intruders. 


84  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

and  took  up  arms  to  defend  the  persons  and  functions 
of  their  non-juring  pastors.  Meanwhile  the  partisans  of 
anarchy  incited  the  peasants  to  renew  at  intervals  their 
attacks  on  property  and  rank.  Provincial  towns  were 
often  mastered  by  the  mob,  and  sometimes  even  in- 
volved in  open  war  with  one  another.  In  the  capital 
the  expense  of  feeding  and  quieting  the  populace  had 
grown  so  insupportable  that  it  became  necessary  to  dis- 
perse those  who  lounged  in  the  national  workshops,  to 
the  great  exasperation  of  the  more  worthless  portion  of 
the  inhabitants  and  its  unruly  leaders. 

Fear  of  Foreign  Invasion. — Abroad,  the  perils  of 
the  royal  family,  the  representations  of  the  emigrh,  and 
an  instinctive  antipathy  to  the  deeds  and  principles  of  the 
movement,  had  produced  the  deepest  enmity  towards 
the  new  government,  and  manifold  designs  for  its  forcible 
destruction.  Paris  and  the  whole  country  were  ever  in 
terror  of  the  onslaught  of  some  resistless  coalition,  to  be 
followed  by  the  restoration  of  the  old  regime^  and  the 
proscription  of  those  who  had  taken  a  prominent  part 
in  the  establishment  of  the  new  order.  Whenever  the 
monarchs  of  Europe  were  reported  to  have  formed 
projects  of  invasion,  the  revolutionary  leaders  trembled 
for  their  lives,  buyers  of  confiscated  land  saw  their  pur- 
chases in  jeopardy,  and  those  who  had  been  relieved  of 
burdens  and  exactions  dreaded  their  reimposition. 

Ascendency  of  the  Enemies  of  the  New  Consti- 
tution.— The  futile  flight  of  the  king  turned  these  fears 
against  the  throne.  The  court  was  viewed  with  the 
greatest  suspicion.  When,  in  September,  1791,  Louis 
accepted  the  constitution,  the  recent  declaration  of 
Pillnitz  had  struck  fresh  apprehension  of  foreign  arms 
and  distrust  of  the  royal  purposes  into  the  heart  of  the 
nation.  By  this  time,  too,  the  more  sober  classes  had 
grown  weary  of  political  tumult,  and  were  well  content 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  85 

with  the  acquisitions  they  had  obtained.  The  new 
elections  showed  that  the  interest  of  the  citizens  in 
public  affairs  had  greatly  cooled.  But  so  much  the 
more  violent  and  successful  were  the  few  adventurous 
politicians  who  used  without  scruple  all  the  arts  of 
cajolery  and  intimidation.  As  the  main  part  of  the 
nation  became  calm  and  disinclined  to  make  the  enor- 
mous sacrifices  of  time  and  energy  demanded  by  the 
new  constitution,  the  extreme  minority  became  more 
busy  and  more  determined  to  maintain  its  hold  on 
public  affairs  by  converting  revolution  into  chaos.  Its 
tactics  were  triumphant  from  the  first.  In  the  new 
assembly  the  moderate  party,  though  numerous  and 
supported  by  a  general  desire  for  repose,  was  unable  to 
form  a  compact  and  courageous  opposition  against  the 
violent  agitators.  Everything  pointed  to  a  renewal  of 
confusion  ;  and  nothing  was  more  calculated  to  precipi- 
tate a  catastrophe  than  the  tension  of  a  foreign  war. 

The  Girondists  promote  the  Jacobin  Cause. — 
Curiously  enough,  the  wildest  enemies  of  the  constitu- 
tion regarded  war  as  fatal  to  their  interests.  They 
feared  the  eventual  establishment  of  a  military  dictator- 
ship, which  would  crush  their  seditions  and  schisms  into 
one  dead  level  of  obedience  to  armed  and  organized 
authority.  It  was  a  party  less  criminal  in  its  designs 
which  made  war  its  first  object.  This  was  the  Girondist 
party,  which  nearly  made  common  cause  with  the 
Jacobins,  though  perhaps  it  cannot  justly  be  charged 
with  a  deliberate  intention  of  doing  more  than  bringing 
the  constitutional  monarchy  within  the  definition  of  a 
republic.  By  the  eloquence  and  ability  of  its  parlia- 
mentary leaders,  and  the  craft  and  energy  of  less  con- 
spicuous supporters,  the  Gironde  immediately  gained 
pre-eminence  in  the  assembly,  and  set  in  motion 
anew  the  forces  of  destruction.     Nor  were  more  sinister 


86  HISTORY   OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

excitements  wanting  to  anarchical  legislation.  The  in- 
trusion of  the  rabble  into  debates  and  the  intimidation  of 
members  became  daily  more  frequent  and  violent.  The 
Gironde  was  too  respectable  to  fraternize  with  the  repre- 
sentatives of  ochlocracy,  or  to  ingratiate  itself  with  the 
canaille  ;  yet  in  the  pursuit  of  its  own  intemperate  ends, 
and  to  the  satisfaction  of  its  short-sighted  jealousies,  it 
persistently  played  into  the  hands  of  those  who  sought 
to  prey  upon  the  industrious  majority  by  means  of  a 
few  thousand  ruffians.  Thus  it  prepared  the  way  for 
the  overthrow  of  the  assembly,  the  murder  of  the  king, 
and  its  own  destruction ;  for  the  supremacy  of  the 
Commune  of  Paris,  and  thereby  of  the  ruffian  band  ;  for 
the  September  massacres,  and  the  pillage  of  the  pro- 
pertied ;  for  the  Reign  of  Terror,  and  for  twenty  years 
of  European  carnage. 

Outbreak  of  the  Revolutionary  War. — But  the 
consequences  of  the  first  step  in  this  direction,  the  em- 
broilment of  France  with  Germany,  far  transcended  in 
lasting  importance  the  licence  of  the  Jacobin  faction  or 
the  horrors  peculiar  to  war.  From  the  day  when  Lafay- 
ette grafted  the  Bourbon  white  on  the  red-and-blue 
colours  of  the  city  of  Paris,  and  declared  that  this  tri- 
colour would  travel  round  the  world,  the  spirit  of  the 
Revolution  had  grown  more  proselytizing.  Hence  one 
cause  of  the  hostility  of  monarchs  to  the  movement, 
hence  one  cause  of  the  Revolution's  readiness  to  attack 
the  monarchies.  Now,  when  the  chidings  and  threats 
of  the  continental  powers  had  offended  the  pride  and 
excited  the  apprehension  of  the  French,  when  the 
asylum  granted  in  the  empire  to  the  army  of  emigres 
had  made  Germany  the  ally  of  the  country's  traitors, 
when  the  Emperor  himself,  notwithstanding  his  pacific 
desires,  obstinately  retained  a  domineering  tone,  war  for 
the  sake  of  the  rights  of  man  and  the  liberty  of  peoples 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  87 

found  little  genuine  disfavour  in  the  nation.  Although 
deference  was  paid  to  the  letter  of  international  law  by 
the  dispersion  of  the  emigres,  and  the  manifestoes  of  the 
enemy  proclaimed  their  own  emptiness,  the  war  party 
was  easily  able  to  find  an  acceptable  pretext  for  the 
declaration  of  hostilities.  Leopold  II.  refused  to 
abandon  his  demand  for  compensation  to  the  pope,  who 
had  been  despoiled  by  the  annexation  to  France  of 
Avignon  and  the  Venaissin,  and  to  the  German  princes, 
who  had  been  injured  by  the  abolition  of  feudal  rights 
in  Alsace.  More  unendurably  still,  he  insisted  upon 
the  French  adopting  a  form  of  government  less  incom- 
patible with  the  comfort  of  monarchs.  The  Gironde 
summed  up  its  charges,  real  and  imaginary,  against 
Austria,  and  war  was  constitutionally  declared  by  the 
king,  who  had  been  reluctantly  compelled  to  choose  a 
ministry  from  the  dominant  party. 

Tyranny  of  the  Revolutionary  Governments. — 
Callous  to  its  own  sufferings,  France  went  forth  to 
impose  on  other  nations  the  blessings  of  its  new  polity. 
The  Revolution,  quitting  the  home  where  it  was  dis- 
graced by  the  sanguinary  strife  of  factions,  advanced  to 
take  Europe  by  storm.  Meanwhile  the  French  people 
endured  the  worst  torments  of  oligarchical  tyranny.  In 
the  name  of  the  Demos — for  it  soon  became  impossible 
to  plead  the  authority  of  the  nation — they  were  sub- 
jected to  the  despotism  of  a  savage  sansculotterie.  They 
experienced  all  the  evils  of  a  rule  usurped  by  the 
fanatical,  the  ignorant,  and  the  base.  Deliverance  was 
brought  by  the  self-destructive  elements  inherent  in 
such  an  extravagance  of  unreason,  but  it  was  impossible 
for  the  nation  to  recover  at  once  from  the  trial.  The 
apathy  of  reaction  is  not  to  be  shaken  off,  nor  are  the 
vices  of  anarchy  to  be  overcome,  in  a  moment.  France 
had  to  undergo  the  ordeal  of  military  despotism  before 


88  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

it  could  find  absolution  for  the  crimes  and  excesses  of 
those  terrible  days.  It  had  to  submit  to  the  usurpation 
of  one,  in  order  to  atone  for  surrendering  itself  to  the 
passions  of  a  few. 

Triumph  of  the  Revolutionary  Armies. — The 
conditions  of  our  purpose  forbid  us  to  follow  the  events 
which  filled  the  interval  between  the  declaration  of  war 
and  the  assumption  of  the  whole  civil  and  military 
power  by  Napoleon  Bonaparte.  In  this  interval 
happened  incidents  of  the  most  astounding  character. 
Though  overwhelmed  at  home  with  murder  and  rapine, 
France  provoked  and  sustained  a  conflict  with  all 
Europe.  While  the  war  of  principles  was  on  both 
sides  converted  into  a  war  of  conquest,  the  wretched 
levies  of  the  Republic  were  permitted  by  the  sordid 
disputes  of  the  military  monarchies  to  develop  into 
monster  citizen  armies,  which  the  pitiless  exertions  of 
the  new  executive  raised  and  drove  to  victory. 
Throughout  the  contest  the  right  of  the  strong  to 
despoil  the  weak,  of  the  conquerors  to  annul  engage- 
ments and  plunder  the  vanquished,  was  asserted  with 
all  the  assurance  of  barbarous  times.  The  era  of 
popular  government  was  introduced  by  enormities 
compared  with  which  the  sins  of  the  late  arbitrary 
monarchs  were  venial.  At  the  same  time,  in  the 
transactions  attending  the  partitioning  of  Poland,  and 
the  collusive  negotiations  with  the  triumphant  Republic, 
the  rottenness  of  the  European  state- system  was  be- 
trayed in  its  worst  light.  The  coming  fall  of  absolutism 
was  ushered  in  by  a  display  of  its  meanest  faults.  And 
all  the  while  the  French,  under  the  guise  of  national 
liberators,  upset  the  governments  of  every  country  they 
invaded,  and  strove  to  bring  all  life  and  property  under 
requisition  by  raising  to  power  any  Jacobinical  faction 
which  they  or  any  other  circumstances  had  created. 


THE  ADVENT  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  89 

The  Despotism  of  Bonaparte. — But  these  events 
were  entirely  transformed  within  the  following  decade. 
Much  of  real  consequence  was  achieved  in  the  midst  of 
wars,  tumults,  and  conspiracies,  but  not  till  the  establish- 
ment of  Bonaparte's  dictatorship  did  the  Revolution 
familiarize  the  people  in  bondage  with  the  justice  and 
unity  which  were  to  be  its  most  lasting  and  precious 
boons  to  mankind.  Not  till  his  ruthless  ambition  had 
pulverized  the  worst  anomalies  of  the  traditional  system 
was  the  basis  of  the  modern  political  order  firmly  laid. 
Hence  the  eclectic  method  of  this  narrative,  while  it 
passes  over  the  interval  occupied  by  the  first  revolution- 
ary war,  calls  for  some  separate  notice  of  the  sequence 
of  events  in  Europe  during  the  consulate  and  the 
empire. 


CHAPTER   IV 
THE  NAPOLEONIC  DESPOTISM 

Tp6irov  rivh  rhv  avrhv  e/c  re  oKiyapxias  drj/jLOKparia  ylyverai  Ka\  iK 
ZrifioKparias  rvpavvis. — PlaTO. 

"Die  bestimmten  Lehrbuchseelen  wurden  so  sehr  vertauscht 
und  vermischt,  dass  kein  Teufel  sie  mehr  erkennen  konnte.  .  .  . 
Die  alten  Konige  bekamem  neue  Uniformen,  neue  Konigthiimer 
wurden  gebacken  und  batten  Absatz  wie  frische  Semmel,  manche 
Potentaten  hingegen  wurden  von  Haus  und  Hof  gejagt,  und  mussten 
auf  andere  Art  ihr  Brod  zu  verdienen  suchen." 

"Es  war  eine  sonnig  marmorne  Hand,  eine  machtige  Hand^ 
eine  von  den  beiden  Handen  die  das  vielkopfige  Ungeheuer  der 
Anarchie  gebandigt  und  den  Volkerzweikampf  geordnet  batten." — 
Heine. 

"  Ce  qui  avilit  et  degrade  trente  millions  d'hommes  ne  saurait 
6tre  durable." — Napoleon  Bonaparte. 

Coup  d'etat,  Brumaire  i8,  1799. — Nearly  eleven  years 
had  elapsed  since  the  Etats-Gen^raux  had  given  the 
initiative  to  revolution,  when  France  was  mastered  by 
a  man  capable  of  ordering  the  chaos  which  had  borne 
him.  War  had  justified  the  fears  of  Robespierre,  and 
what  had  successively  been  dreaded  of  Lafayette, 
Dumouriez,  Custine,  and  Hoche,  was  now  at  last 
accomplished  by  Napoleon  Bonaparte.  A  triumphant 
soldier  had  seized  the  helm  of  the  state,  and  the  con- 
stitution of  the  Year  VIII.  had  invested  him  with  a 
virtual  dictatorship  under  the  title  of  First  Consul. 

Bonaparte's  Character  and  Policy. — When  France 
90 


THE  NAPOLEONIC   DESPOTISM  91 

was  rescued  from  foreign  foes  and  domestic  disorders 
by  its  most  successful  general,  it  adopted  something 
more  than  a  heroic  remedy  for  its  misfortunes.  It  had, 
in  truth,  entered  on  a  new  stage  of  its  revolution.  It 
had  brought  to  an  end  the  turbulent  phase  of  the  move- 
ment, and  had  commenced  that  of  consolidation.  The 
man  who  now  became  its  absolute  ruler  was  neither  a 
political  sectary  nor  a  partisan  of  any  faction.  A 
Jacobin  only  when  it  was  unsafe  to  be  anything  else,  he 
followed  throughout  his  career  with  immovable  single- 
ness of  purpose  the  principle  of  personal  aggrandisement. 
For  him  this  motive  was  such  a  passion  that,  paradoxical 
as  it  may  sound,  it  took  an  abstract,  almost  impersonal, 
form.  To  satisfy  it,  he  seized  every  occasion  without 
regard  for  any  other  consideration,  and  was  at  once  the 
first  and  the  most  successful  opportunist  in  a  century 
which  knew  few  other  tactics.  He  assumed  the  consular 
office  with  profuse  avowals  of  disinterested  patriotism, 
and  thrilling  assurances  that  all  feuds  and  party  strife 
were  at  an  end.  He  proclaimed  the  homogeneity  of 
the  nation,  and  recognized  merit  as  the  sole  distinction 
among  Frenchmen.  Under  the  one  condition  of  im- 
plicit obedience  to  himself,  he  inaugurated  a  new  and 
catholic  creed  of  citizenship.  Thus  he  repealed  most 
of  the  laws  which  had  been  levelled  against  the  royal- 
ists, and  adopted  in  their  stead  conciliatory  measures. 
Every  effort  was  made  to  convince  the  country  that  it 
had  at  last  obtained  a  stable  and  efficient  polity  without 
sacrificing  the  benefits  of  the  new  social  order.  The 
civil  functions  of  government  were  discharged  with 
great  energy  and  ability ;  the  finances  were  put  on  a 
sound  footing ;  the  administration  was  invested  with 
unity  and  vigour  far  transcending  the  misshapen 
centralization  of  the  monarchy ;  and  the  work  of 
legislation  was  resumed  in  an  active  and  judicial  spirit. 


92  HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

But  while  Bonaparte  strove  to  conceal  from  men 
the  fact  that  France  had  fallen  under  the  despotism  of 
a  military  adventurer,,  he  did  not  forswear  the  vices 
which  tend  to  disfigure  the  best  forms  of  such  a  political 
type.  In  war  he  had  won  the  allegiance  of  the  French, 
and  he  was  not  the  man  to  seek  another  basis  for  his 
authority.  Though  he  excited  the  hopes  of  the  ex- 
hausted country  by  pacific  protestations,  he  untiringly 
prepared  in  secret  for  the  continuation  of  war — war 
which  was  to  issue  in  Marengo,  Hohenlinden,  and  the 
peace  of  Luneville. 

Peace  of  Luneville.  The  German  Diet  at 
Regensburg,  1802-3. — The  time  was  now  come  for 
the  Revolution  to  complete  the  ruin  of  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire.  Pursuant  to  the  treaty  of  Luneville,  the 
German  Diet  met  at  Regensburg  to  discuss  a  scheme  of 
compensation  for  the  rulers  dispossessed  by  its  pro- 
visions. Virtually  the  meeting  was  a  renewal  of  the 
congress  of  Rastadt.  Almost  the  same  business  was  its 
object,  and  only  a  more  pronounced  profligacy  of 
method  distinguished  it  from  the  earlier  assembly. 
After  much  debate  a  committee  of  eight  members  was 
appointed  "to  settle  in  conjunction  with  the  French 
government  the  details  reserved  in  the  Peace  of 
Luneville  for  special  agreement;"  but  its  functions 
were  even  more  formal  than  those  of  the  futile  congress. 
At  Rastadt  the  incoherence  and  disintegration  of  the 
venerable  empire  had  become  painfully  apparent. 
The  feud  of  the  Reformation  had  at  once  loosened  its 
members  and  made  them  more  monarchical  and 
ambitious.  Since  then  its  want  of  solidarity  had  been 
steadily  increased  by  the  jealousy  between  the  new 
Prussian  state  and  the  ancient  House  of  Austria,  and 
by  the  apprehension  constantly  felt  by  the  smaller 
states  lest  they  should  fall  victims  to  either  of  these 


THE  NAPOLEONIC  DESPOTISM  93 

great  monarchies.  When,  therefore,  the  traitorous 
conduct  of  the  Emperor  at  Campo  Formio  was  disclosed 
at  Rastadt — when  it  was  known  that  the  head  of  the 
nation,  who  had  guaranteed  the  integrity  of  the 
empire  in  the  preliminaries  of  Leoben,  and  had 
renewed  the  assurance  when  he  convoked  the  assembly, 
had  in  truth  betrayed  to  the  stranger  nearly  all  the  left 
bank  of  the  Rhine, — the  German  rulers  greedily  hastened 
to  secure  every  possible  trifle  in  the  scramble  of  redis- 
tribution. The  slow  and  wearisome  debates  were 
supplemented  by  intrigues  of  the  most  degraded  nature. 
Conscious  that  the  French  consul  could  give  a  casting 
vote  on  any  disputed  question,  the  princes  found  no 
indignity  too  shameful,  no  trick  too  base,  to  obtain  his 
favour. 

Competition  of  the  German  States.  Bonaparte's 
Settlement  of  Germany,  1803. — With  the  peace  of 
Luneville  these  proceedings  were  renewed,  and  while 
Regensburg  was  the  seat  of  the  ostensible  debate,  Paris 
was  the  real  theatre  of  contention.  So  little  did  Bona- 
parte's repeated  conquests  awaken  the  patriotic  appre- 
hensions and  personal  suspicions  of  the  German  rulers, 
that  the  pause  which  had  given  him  new  victories  and 
fresh  opportunities  for  exaction,  only  imparted  to  the 
shameful  traffic  additional  briskness.  Nor  were  the 
princes  alone  in  being  well  pleased  to  make  profit  out 
of  the  misfortunes  of  the  Fatherland  by  means  of 
French  intervention.  Their  subjects  were  also  gener- 
ally desirous  of  pursuing  the  same  policy.  They 
thought  it  good  to  court  the  great  man  of  the  age. 
Deceived  by  those  diabolical  half-truths,  as  Treitschke 
calls  them,  which  Bonaparte  could  so  well  manipulate, 
the  people  sanctioned,  as  plainly  as  they  usually 
expressed  themselves  on  political  matters,  the  unprin- 
cipled and  short-sighted  conduct  of  their  rulers. 


94  HISTORY  OF   MODERN  EUROPE 

The  First  Consul,  on  his  side,  prosecuted  with  a 
duplicity  and  address,  heretofore  unequalled,  the 
traditional  policy  of  France  in  German  affairs.  Never 
weary  of  declaring  his  disinterestedness,  his  zeal  for  the 
well-being  of  Germany,  and  his  sincere  desire  for  peace 
and  concord,  he  brought  the  suppliant  princes  to 
separate  treaties  with  France  ;  and  by  territorial  adjust- 
ments formed  of  them  powers  which  were  no  powers 
without  him,  and  gave  them  ambitions  which  he  alone 
could  satisfy.  In  a  word,  he  made  of  them  duteous 
vassals  to  himself.  Feigning  to  take  into  his  counsels 
the  young  Tsar,  Alexander,  whose  convenient  friendship 
was  thus  easily  obtained  on  account  of  his  family 
connections  with  the  German  courts,  he  drew  up  a 
scheme  of  indemnification,  and  presented  it  to  the  Diet 
for  endorsement.  In  due  time  a  servile  assent  was 
given  to  every  point  which  concerned  the  two  autocrats. 
By  this  settlement,  Austria  and  Prussia  were  more 
equally  balanced  against  one  another,  the  former  being 
deprived  of  influence  in  Western  Germany,  and  the 
latter  finding  in  more  convenient  situations  a  rich 
recompense  for  its  cessions  on  the  Rhine  ;  while  the 
middle  states,  Bavaria,  Baden,  and  Wlirtemberg, 
received  very  considerable  accessions  of  territory. 

Suppression  of  the  Free  Cities  and  Ecclesiastical 
States. — But  if  Bonaparte  dislocated  yet  further  the 
political  structure  of  Germany,  he  was  at  least  instru- 
mental in  removing  the  worst  of  the  anachronisms 
which  stifled  the  development  of  improved  institutions 
among  a  large  division  of  its  people.  The  same 
measure  which  brought  German  separatism  to  a  climax 
also  extinguished  the  ecclesiastical  sovereignties  and 
nearly  all  the  free  cities.  That  these  strongholds  of 
priestly  obscurantism  and  bourgeois  apathy  would  some 
day  be   invaded   by  their  more  ambitious  and   active 


THE   NAPOLEONIC  DESPOTISM  95 

neighbours  had  long  been  apparent.  Such  a  change 
was,  in  fact,  an  integral  condition  of  the  process  which 
was  imparting  increased  energy  and  sense  to  German 
public  life.  Till  an  end  was  made  of  the  worldly- 
citadels  of  Catholicism,  it  was  impossible  for  the 
Protestants  legally  to  affirm  in  the  affairs  of  the  empire 
the  influence  to  which  their  numbers,  civilization,  and 
power  entitled  them.  Till  the  misrule  of  priestly 
principalities — a  kind  of  principality  which,  Machiavelli 
declared,  "si  acquistano  o  per  virtu  o  per  fortuna,  e 
senza  Tuna  e  I'altra  si  mantengono" — was  exchanged 
for  the  government  of  a  secular  state,  the  sustained 
introduction  of  modern  reform  was  denied  to  many  a 
German  district.  Till  the  bishoprics  and  free  cities  had 
sacrificed  the  monotonous  routine  of  their  petty  inde- 
pendence by  participating  in  the  interests  and  anxieties 
of  a  modern  polity,  national  spirit  and  a  worthy 
conception  of  citizenship  were  not  to  be  looked  for 
among  many  of  the  mercantile  and  professional  classes. 
Concordat  between  Bonaparte  and  Pius  VII. — 
With  equal  directness  and  vigour  Bonaparte  developed 
in  France  his  policy  of  making  every  remedial 
measure,  every  instrument  of  government,  every  active 
force,  an  emanation  from  his  own  will.  He  instituted 
the  Legion  of  Honour  to  reward  those  who  most 
industriously  served  him ;  his  sycophants  caused  the 
consulship  to  be  assured  to  him  for  life;  and  the 
irresponsible  functions  of  the  office  were  so  increased 
by  changes  in  the  constitution  that  only  a  formal 
declaration  of  the  sacred  and  hereditary  nature  of 
his  dignity  was  wanted  to  vest  in  him  imperial  power. 
Most  significant  was  his  settlement  of  the  religious 
schism  which  by  this  time,  like  every  other  passion  of 
the  Revolution,  had  spent  all  its  original  fury.  Re- 
storing to  the  Catholic  priesthood   the   position   of  a 


96  HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

national  church,  he  organized  it  into  a  hierarchy,  strictly 
subordinate  to  himself,  yet  exercising  all  the  influence 
of  the  clergy  of  Rome.  The  character  of  the  new  pope 
greatly  facilitated  the  introduction  of  such  a  measure. 
Though  the  successor  of  Pius  VL,  who  had  been 
persecuted  by  the  Republic,  and  had  died  in  exile 
and  duress,  Pius  VII.  had  displayed  both  as  bishop  of 
Imola  and  as  pope  extraordinary  toleration  of  the 
Revolution.  Now  that  the  movement  seemed  to  be 
approaching  a  settled  issue,  he  showed  much  anxiety  to 
re-establish  the  papal  power  in  harmony  with  the  new 
conditions.  With  him  Bonaparte  concluded  a  con- 
cordat by  which  the  Free  Constitutional  Church  of 
France  was  suppressed,  and  the  papal  authority  was 
made  absolute,  while  the  nomination  of  the  bishops  was 
given  to  the  First  Consul,  and  all  decrees  from  the 
court  of  Rome  were  subjected  to  the  censure  of  the 
government.  This  arrangement  persisted  through  seven 
changes  of  regime  in  France,  and  endured  till  December 
31,  1905. 

Bonaparte's  Attitude  towards  the  Churches. — 
The  Concordat  was  based  on  the  proposition,  **La 
religion  catholique  est  la  religion  de  la  grande  majority 
du  peuple  frangais."  Hence  the  French  Protestants 
feared  that  their  numerical  inferiority  might  be  held  to 
deprive  of  protection  the  religious  freedom  which  they 
had  recently  enjoyed.  Bonaparte,  however,  was  inclined 
to  treat  them  with  favour,  and  gave  them  a  satisfactory 
constitutional  status.  The  result  was  that,  owing  to  the 
tolerant  spirit  proceeding  from  the  indifference  of 
reaction,  a  remarkable  cordiality  subsisted  between  all 
religious  confessions  in  France  during  his  rule.  In 
Germany,  too,  where  men  had  already  been  diverted 
from  attaching  much  importance  to  dogmatic  theology, 
Bonaparte  helped  to  induce  a  more  tolerant  feeling  than 


THE  NAPOLEONIC  DESPOTISM  97 

had  prevailed  since  the  Peace  of  Westphalia  by  pro- 
claiming in  the  act  of  the  Rheinbund  the  civil  equality 
of  both  creeds.  On  the  other  hand,  he  took  care  to  get 
the  utmost  from  his  bargain  with  the  pope.  He  lost  no 
opportunity  of  using  his  authority  to  convert  the 
priesthood  into  apostles  of  his  own  despotic  cult.  His 
servile  clergy  unblushingly  declared  the  sacred  nature 
of  his  mission  ;  they  consented  to  the  ludicrous  blas- 
phemy of  his  imperial  catechism,  and  taught  that 
submission  to  his  taxes  and  conscription  was  almost 
co-extensive  with  the  whole  duty  of  man. 

Sources  of  Modern  Ultramontanism. — To  the 
papacy,  however,  these  dealings  with  Bonaparte  brought 
for  the  present  nothing  but  mortification  and  distress. 
In  a  subsequent  epoch  the  pontifical  influence  was 
vastly  increased  by  the  ultramontane  sacerdotalism 
which,  as  commonly  happens  in  such  cases,  was  evoked 
by  the  humiliation  of  the  clergy  in  France,  and  the 
extinction  of  the  ecclesiastical  foundations  in  Germany.* 

*  The  great  revolt  against  ultramontanism  in  Germany  in  the  eighteenth 
century  had  terminated  in  a  decided  failure  mainly  through  the  fear  of  the 
bishops,  lest  they  might  be  placed  at  the  mercy  of  their  immediate  superiors. 
When  Joseph  II.  came  to  the  throne,  and  attacked  the  Papal  power  and 
ecclesiastical  independence,  the  German  archbishops  proposed  to  carry  out 
a  scheme,  which  for  some  years  they  had  been  contemplating.  In  1763, 
Nicholas  von  Hontheim,  who  had  been  privy  councillor  to  the  Archbishop 
of  Trier,  and  was  then  his  suffragan,  had  pubUshed,  under  the  name  of 
Febronius,  his  famous  treatise  demonstrating  that  the  pseudo-Isidorian 
false  decretals — (the  prefix  applies  only  to  the  unknown  writer) — were  the 
principal  support  of  the  later  pretensions  of  Rome.  In  1786,  in  the  cele- 
brated *'Emser  Punktation,"  the  Archbishops  of  Trier,  Koln,  Mainz,  and 
Salzburg  asserted  that  the  pope,  though  possessing  a  supervisionary  power, 
had  no  right  to  supplant  the  bishops  in  administrative  matters,  nor  claim  to 
appropriate  Peter's  pence,  etc.  ;  but  that  such  affairs,  and  the  business  of 
ecclesiastical  discipline,  should  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  national  synod. 
Joseph,  however,  though  implacable  towards  conventualism,  intolerance, 
and  the  civil  authority  of  the  papacy,  would  not  consent  to  such  changes 
till  the  bishops  gave  in  their  adherence ;  and  as  these  suspected  that  a 
reproduction  in  Germany  of  the  Galilean  Church  would  make  them  too 
H 


98  HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

Then  the  concessions  of  Bonaparte  to  Pius  VII.  became 
sources  of  new  power  to  Rome,  and  greatly  helped  to 
prop  up  the  principle  of  ecclesiastical  authority  which 
the  progress  of  European  development  appeared  to  have 
overthrown.  But  while  Bonaparte  presided  over  the 
execution  of  the  compact,  nought  but  bitter  disappoint- 
ment and  brutal  misusage  rewarded  the  pope's  repeated 
and  undignified  efforts  to  appease  the  new  Charlemagne. 
The  Code  Napoleon,  published  1804. — To  a  some- 
what different  category  belongs  the  Civil  Code.  Though 
Bonaparte  undoubtedly  regarded  the  legislator's  renown 
as  a  necessary  component  of  his  authority,  his  codification 
of  the  law  was  free  from  those  sinister  distortions  which 
marred  too  many  of  his  undertakings.  The  reckless 
fiscal  policy  of  his  predecessors  had  inclined  people  to 
be  strongly  prepossessed  in  favour  of  any  ruler  who 
assumed  the  aspect  of  a  severe  financier.  "  Plusieurs  de 
ses  portraits  d'alors,"  says  Michelet,  "sont  ceux  qu'on 
imaginerait  pour  un  avare."  In  the  same  way  the 
chaotic  state  of  the  French  law  had  raised  a  general 
demand  for  its  systematization,  and  Bonaparte  perceived 
that  its  immediate  satisfaction  would  bring  him  great 
accession  of  confidence  and  prestige.  Indeed,  Voltaire 
had  been  able  to  say  that  a  traveller  through  France 
changed  his  laws  as  often  as  he  changed  his  post-horses  ; 
and  the  Constituent  Assembly,  the  Convention,  and 
the  Directory  had  all  in  turn  taken  steps  towards  the 
formation  of  a  code.  The  completion  of  the  task 
Bonaparte  secured  by  appointing  a  commission  of 
trained  lawyers  to  throw  into  shape  the  different 
chapters,  which  were  then  discussed  by  the  Council  of 

dependent  on  the  ecclesiastical  princes,  they  refused  to  acquiesce  in  resist- 
ance to  the  papal  pretensions,  notwithstanding  the  spurious  nature  of  many 
of  the  pseudo-Isidorian  decretals.  For  a  lively,  but  regrettably  incom- 
plete, notice  of  this  incident  in  German  ecclesiastical  history,  see  Fisher, 
Napoleonic  Statesmanshipy  p.  lo. 


THE   NAPOLEONIC  DESPOTISM  99 

State,  the  Tribunate,  and  the  Legislative  Body.  As 
one  among  others  Bonaparte  diligently  criticized  and 
amended,  as  head  of  the  state,  he  published,  the  law- 
book thus  compiled ;  but  never  with  others  would  he 
share  the  honour  of  giving  to  France  a  system  of 
practical  jurisprudence.  When  he  became  emperor, 
and  was  beyond  reach  of  the  claims  of  his  colleagues, 
he  formally  adopted  the  work  as  his  own  by  changing 
its  name  of  the  Code  Civil  into  that  of  the  Code 
Napoleon.  Nor  did  he  err  in  seeking  by  this  means 
to  find  a  place  in  the  memory  of  posterity.  Succeeding 
generations,  even  when  made  aware  that  his  pretensions 
were  excessive,  have  consented  to  tolerate  the  ambition 
of  the  great  soldier  for  legislative  fame,  and  have  con- 
tinued to  call  the  code,  which  he  fathered,  by  the  name 
he  chose  for  a  lasting  memorial  to  himself. 

Character  of  the  Code. — The  substance  of  the  code 
consists  partly  of  Roman  law,  partly  of  customary  law, 
and  partly  of  the  ordinances  of  the  kings  and  of  the 
laws  of  the  Revolution.  Haste  and  insufficient  erudition 
diminished  its  efficiency  ;  want  of  definitions  of  technical 
terms,  absence  of  a  method  of  distinction,  omission  to 
enunciate  the  broad  principles  underlying  its  details, 
gave  it  a  fallacious  brevity ;  neglect  to  provide  for  the 
incorporation  of  judiciary  law  prevented  it  from  meeting 
the  demands  of  experience  and  of  time ;  but  its  short- 
comings have  not  prevented  it  from  being  of  immense 
practical  service  to  the  peoples  of  Europe,  and  a  very 
instructive  example  to  all  who  consider  the  problems  of 
codification.  From  the  point  of  view  of  general  history 
it  has  been  yet  more  illustrious.  It  was  founded  on  the 
principle  of  the  equality  of  all  men  before  the  law — the 
grand  truth  enunciated  once  for  all  by  the  Revolution. 
Carried  wherever  the  French  armies  penetrated,  it  was 
often  retained  when  they  were  driven  away.     Thus  the 


100         HISTORY  OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

equitable  code  was  at  once  the  most  potent  evangelist 
of  the  Revolution,  and  the  most  lasting  benefit  conferred 
by  France  on  the  subject  nations. 

Bonaparte  made  Emperor,  1804. — In  1804  a  futile 
Bourbon  conspiracy  afforded  a  pretext  for  Bonaparte's 
obedient  creatures  in  the  senate  to  propose  that  France 
should  be  protected  from  further  political  catastrophes 
by  conversion  of  the  consulate  into  a  hereditary  throne. 
So  completely  had  he  subdued  the  different  bodies  of 
the  original  constitution,  and  the  whole  official  hierarchy ; 
so  much  popularity  had  both  peace  and  war  given  him  ; 
so  implicitly  was  he  believed  to  have  bestowed  glory 
and  prosperity  on  France ;  that  he  found  it  unnecessary 
to  incur  the  odium  of  another  usurpation.  Giving 
manifold  indications  of  the  aim  he  had  in  view,  he  was 
content  to  leave  the  initiative  to  men  like  Fouche,  and 
the  decision  to  that  part  of  the  people  which  his 
bureaucracy  permitted  to  personate  the  nation.  None 
the  less,  however,  did  he  emphasize  the  autocratic 
character  of  his  rule.  At  his  coronation  the  world  was 
studiously  reminded  that  on  that  day  an  emperor  indeed 
was  enthroned.  The  last  semblances  of  democratic 
government  vanished.  The  republican  calendar  was 
abandoned,  a  new  nobility  was  created,  the  old  aris- 
tocracy was  welcomed  back,  and  all  the  ceremonial 
observances  of  an  imperial  court  were  instituted.  The 
press,  which  had  been  grievously  reduced  by  the  con- 
sular government,  was  deprived  of  all  connection  with 
public  opinion.  Individuals  were  more  than  ever 
prohibited  from  discussing  matters  of  state ;  and  those 
studies,  which  form  the  best  part  of  a  liberal  culture 
were  proscribed  alike  in  the  salons,  the  schools,  and  the 
Institute. 

Third  Coalition  War,  1805.— Yet  in  the  following 
year  Napoleon  put  to  hazard  all  this  late-won  power  in 


THE   NAPOLEONIC  DESPOTISM  101 

a  conflict  with  the  greater  part  of  Europe.  Pitt  had 
concluded  offensive  alliances  with  Russia,  Austria,  and 
Sweden,  though  Prussia  obstinately  remained  neutral. 
Thus  came  about  the  third  coalition  war  of  1805,  which 
men  of  the  English  race  remember  by  the  death  of  Pitt, 
and  the  death  of  Nelson. 

Campaign  of  Austerlitz. — The  allies  sought  to  veil 
the  genesis  of  their  coalition  in  secrecy.  It  was  with 
great  discomfiture  that  they  saw  the  army,  till  then 
destined  to  conquer  England,  the  efficiency  of  which  has 
probably  never  been  surpassed  in  modern  times,  move 
with  the  utmost  precision  and  speed  into  Germany. 
But  though  Napoleon  was  prepared  betimes  to  change 
his  plan  of  operations,  he  did  not  avoid  jeopardizing  his 
fleet  as  if  the  invasion  were  really  to  be  carried  out. 
The  battle  of  Cape  Trafalgar  crushed  for  good  his 
maritime  power.  England  was  rendered  safe  from 
direct  attack ;  and  the  world  in  due  time  received  the 
greatest  of  its  object-lessons  on  the  influence  of  sea- 
power.  The  campaign  on  land,  however,  made  Napoleon 
master  of  Central  Europe.  Bringing  the  Austrian  army 
in  Germany  to  an  inglorious  capitulation  at  Ulm,  he 
marched  through  Vienna,  and,  with  inferior  forces,  won 
in  his  best  style  the  battle  of  Austerlitz  against  the 
troops  of  Francis  and  Alexander.  The  action  was 
decisive.  The  allies  thought  not  of  renewing  the  war 
with  the  relays  of  troops  which  were  hurrying  up  from 
north  and  south.  Russian  and  Austrian  alike  wished 
to  be  rid  of  their  ill-fated  connection.  The  Emperor 
Alexander  silently  returned  home,  pursued  only  by 
Napoleon's  flattering  tokens  of  esteem. 

Peace  of  Presburg,  December,  1805. — The  Emperor 
Francis  accepted  the  peace  of  Presburg,  which  deprived 
his  house  of  the  ill-gotten  Venetian  States,  Tyrol,  and 
its  more  distant  possessions  in  Western  Germany.     The 


102         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

King  of  Prussia,  who  had  been  on  the  point  of  joining 
the  coalition  with  a  large  army  if  his  mediation  were 
unsuccessful,  was  committed  to  an  alliance  with  the 
conqueror  by  his  terrified  negotiator.  And  well  did 
Napoleon  appear  to  make  the  fruits  of  victory  com- 
pensate France  for  its  exertions.  The  empire  was  not 
made  more  unwieldy  in  bulk,  but  its  dependants, 
Bavaria,  Wiirtemberg,  and  Baden,  received  considerable 
accessions  of  territory.  The  two  first  were  raised  to  the 
rank  of  kingdoms  ;  while  the  Emperor's  Italian  princi- 
pality, which  he  had  already  turned  into  a  kingdom  of 
Italy  to  the  great  disgust  of  Austria,  was  increased  by 
the  addition  of  the  ceded  Venetian  lands. 

The  Rheinbund,  1806.— But  the  full  depth  of 
Europe's  humiliation  was  not  experienced  till  the  two 
following  years.  In  1806  an  act  of  federation  was 
signed  by  the  Kings  of  Bavaria  and  Wiirtemberg,  the 
Elector  of  Baden,  and  thirteen  minor  princes,  which 
united  them  into  a  league  under  the  protection  of  the 
French  Emperor.  The  objects  of  this  confederacy, 
known  as  the  Rheinbund,  were  defence  against  foreign 
aggression,  and  the  exercise  of  complete  autonomy  at 
home.  The  first  of  these  was  obtained  by  an  alliance 
with  Napoleon,  in  exchange  for  which  they  agreed  to 
support  him  in  all  his  wars,  and  to  place  their  troops  at 
his  disposal ;  the  second  was  achieved  by  a  declared 
secession  from  the  empire,  and  the  annexation  of  those 
petty  principalities  which,  hitherto  immediately  depend- 
ent on  the  imperial  constitution,  abounded  in  great 
numbers  throughout  Germany.  Already  the  conse- 
quences of  the  Peace  of  Lun^ville  had  induced  the 
ruling  Hapsburg  to  assure  his  equality  with  the 
sovereigns  of  France  and  Russia  by  taking  the  imperial 
title  in  his  own  right ;  and  before  the  confederation  of 
the  Rhine  was  made  public  he  formally  renounced  his 


THE  NAPOLEONIC  DESPOTISM  103 

office  of  elective  emperor  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire, 
and  released  from  allegiance  to  him  all  the  states  and 
princes  of  the  Reich.  The  triumph  of  the  German 
policy  of  the  consulate  was  complete. 

Overthrow  of  Prussia,  October,  1806. — The  one 
German  power  which  remained  to  dispute  Napoleon's 
supremacy  in  Central  Europe  was  now  crushed  with 
every  extreme  of  contumely.  Prussia,  treated  alter- 
nately with  contempt  and  friendly  importunity,  had  at 
one  time  almost  yielded  to  the  bribe  of  Hanover  as  the 
price  of  an  offensive  alliance  with  France.  It  was  only 
after  a  long  series  of  deceptions  on  Napoleon's  part, 
and  disappointments  on  Prussia's  part,  that  Frederick 
William  decided  to  abandon  all  hope  of  receiving  an 
illegitimate  accession  of  territory.  He  set  on  foot 
preparations  for  war,  obtained  the  promise  of  assistance 
from  the  Tsar,  and  sent  an  ultimatum  to  Paris.  But 
there  was  only  time  to  obtain  by  force  a  Saxon  con- 
tingent before  Prussia  had  to  meet  its  swift  and  mighty 
adversary.  The  Prussian  army  was  deficient  in  every- 
thing requisite  for  the  new  warfare.  Sixty-five  years 
earlier  it  had  established  its  reputation  at  the  battle 
of  Molwitz  by  the  extraordinary  rapidity  of  its  fire 
and  the  precision  of  its  manoeuvres.  Now  it  was 
stricken  with  all  the  infirmities  of  age,  in  system, 
equipment,  and  officers.  The  unobservant  world,  how- 
ever, believed  it  to  be  still  a  perfect  engine  of  its  type. 
Great,  therefore,  was  the  amazement  when  it  was  com- 
pletely out-manoeuvred  by  the  French  Emperor,  and  as 
completely  defeated  at  Jena  and  Auerstadt  on  the 
same  day. 

Panic  in  Prussia.  Prussia  fell  to  the  ground.  The 
moral  feebleness  of  the  administration  seemed  to  have 
spread  through  the  army  and  nation.  The  people — all 
sense  of  patriotism    merged   in    their  sense  of  class- 


104         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

division,  filled  with  hatred  of  the  insolent  and  licentious 
nobility  and  soldiery — appeared  to  care  little  for  their 
army's  destruction,  and  complacently  witnessed  Napo- 
leon's administration  of  the  country  he  had  conquered. 
And  in  the  army,  wherever  responsibility  lay,  there  the 
incapacity  and  cowardice  of  old  age  was  almost  uni- 
formly manifested.  The  fortresses,  which  might  have 
detained  the  enemy  till  the  Russian  army  arrived,  vied 
with  each  other  in  their  promptness  to  capitulate  at  the 
presence  of  the  French.  The  panic  of  the  garrisons 
caused  the  conqueror  to  insist  on  such  ruinous  terms 
that  Frederick  William  despairingly  determined  to  let 
Alexander's  troops  contest  the  small  portion  of  territory 
remaining  to  him.  The  climate  and  roads  of  East 
Prussia  being  very  unfavourable  to  Napoleon's  rapid 
strategy,  no  decisive  action  redeemed  the  bloody  repulse 
at  Eylau  till  the  battle  of  Friedland  in  June,  1807. 
Hereupon  an  armistice  followed,  and  then  a  peace — a 
peace  only  less  pernicious  and  sensational  than  war 
itself. 

Submission  of  the  Tsar. — Within  a  fortnight  of 
his  defeat  Alexander  forgot  his  devotion  to  Frederick 
William,  and  repented  of  having  incurred  disasters  like 
Austerlitz  and  Friedland  in  the  quarrels  of  others.  Nay, 
he  surrendered  himself  to  the  fascination  of  Napoleon, 
and  abandoned  Prussia  to  its  fate.  Granted  two  inter- 
views on  a  raft  moored  in  the  middle  of  the  Memel,  he 
was  induced  to  desert  the  cause  of  Europe,  and  become 
a  party  to  Napoleon's  schemes  of  universal  conquest. 
Tilsit  was  chosen  for  the  theatre  of  a  debate  on  an 
immediate  peace  ;  and  the  bargain  struck  on  the  Memel 
was  there  pursued  to  its  remotest  consequences. 

Peace  of  Tilsit,  July,  1807. — With  the  seduction  of 
the  Tsar,  Napoleon  seemed  to  have  vanquished  all 
resistance  in  continental  Europe.      In  truth,  however, 


THE  NAPOLEONIC   DESPOTISM  105 

the  Peace  of  Tilsit  was  the  most  fatal  of  his  victories. 
Till  then  the  tenor  of  his  ambition,  though  poised  with 
uncertain  balance  between  the  bold  and  the  visionary, 
had  never  actually  abandoned  the  region  of  the  practic- 
able, or  forsaken  the  path  of  deliberate  calculation. 
Till  then  his  challenges  had  been  directed  at  monarchs 
who  could  be  cajoled  in  misfortune  and  appeased 
in  success,  to  governments  as  capable  of  treason  to 
themselves  as  they  were  sordid  in  their  conscious  aims. 
Never  had  he  defied  implacable  resentment  or  enduring 
opposition  ;  never  had  he  provoked  the  hate  of  peoples, 
or  aroused  the  rebellion  of  nations.  But  now,  having 
brought  every  power  to  ignominious  terms,  and  having 
converted  the  most  formidable  and  inaccessible  of  his 
foes  into  a  tame  abettor  of  his  plans,  he  yielded  to  the 
chimeras  of  his  imagination.  Without  any  sense  of 
anachronism  he  proceeded  to  use  his  victory,  as  if  the 
days  of  the  Caesars  were  to  be  reproduced.  To  Prussia 
he  vouched  a  curtailed  existence  as  a  compliment  to 
Alexander.  "  Par  ^gard,"  ran  the  fourth  article  of  this 
extraordinary  treaty,  "par  egard  pour  S.M.  I'empereur 
de  toutes  les  Russies  et  voulant  donner  une  preuve  du 
desir  sincere  qui'l  a  d'unir  les  deux  nations  par  les  liens 
d'une  confiance  et  d'une  amitie  inalterables,"  he  con- 
sented to  restore  to  Frederick  William  about  half  his 
territory.  Out  of  the  remainder  he  formed  a  kingdom 
of  Westphalia  for  his  brother  Jerome.  A  small  portion 
of  Prussian  Poland  he  transferred  to  Russia ;  the  rest 
he  bestowed,  as  the  Grand-Duchy  of  Warsaw,  on  the 
Elector  of  Saxony,  now  granted  the  title  of  king,  who 
had  become  one  of  his  vassals  of  the  Rheinbund  after 
the  first  defeats  of  Prussia.  By  the  same  treaty  he 
procured  the  recognition  of  Joseph  Bonaparte  as  king 
of  Naples,  and  of  Louis  Bonaparte  as  king  of  Holland. 
Finally,  in  secret  articles  Napoleon  pledged  Alexander 


106         HISTORY   OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

to  support  him  in  his  quarrel  with  England  by  giving 
Russia  permission  to  seize  Finland  and  the  Danubian 
provinces  of  the  Porte. 

The  Continental  System,  1806-13. — It  was  from 
this  secret  understanding  that  flowed  the  many  woes 
which  shortly  overtook  Europe.  Assured  of  his  position 
of  dictator  in  Germany  and  Italy,  Napoleon  hastened  to 
array  the  Continent  against  England.  To  this  end  he 
continued  to  trample  upon  the  integrity  of  states  ;  he 
attacked  personal  property  and  liberty,  and  involved 
countless  individuals  in  the  miseries  of  poverty  and 
war.  In  retaliation  against  a  very  extended  blockade, 
which  the  British  Government  had  declared,  he  had 
issued  from  Berlin  his  famous  decree,  which  ostracized 
England  from  the  pale  of  European  intercourse.  The 
British  Isles  were  henceforth  to  be  utterly  shunned  by 
all  friends  of  France  ;  every  person  and  thing  connected 
with  England,  even  the  merchandise  in  the  possession 
of  continental  traders,  was  to  be  confiscated  ;  no  neutral 
vessels  which  had  touched  at  a  British  port  were  to 
be  admitted  into  harbour.  The  paper  blockade  was 
met  by  a  paper  outlawry.  Thus  arose  the  continental 
system.  At  Tilsit,  Russia  and  Prussia  undertook  to 
enforce  it  in  their  territories;  in  1808  Austria  did  like- 
wise, and  the  system  extended  with  every  increase  of 
Napoleon's  dominion. 

Feeling  towards  England's  Maritime  Policy. — 
Great  efforts  were  made  to  produce  within  the  empire 
all  that  was  required  to  meet  the  wants  of  modern 
life ;  but  beyond  laying  the  basis  of  the  manufacture  of 
beetroot  sugar,  and  giving  a  dangerous  stimulus  to 
unsuitable  industries,  little  was  accomplished  to  com- 
pensate the  people  for  the  loss  of  supplies  from  abroad. 
On  the  other  hand,  England's  overbearing  conduct  in 
maritime  warfare  had  long  been  a  matter  of  complaint 


THE  NAPOLEONIC  DESPOTISM  107 

among  powers  who  were  in  no  position  to  contest 
British  supremacy  on  the  sea.  But  never  had  it 
excited  so  much  bitterness  as  during  the  war  with 
revolutionary  France.*  Hence  France  was  inclined  to 
endorse  the  Emperor's  message  to  the  senate  when  the 
Berlin  decree  was  issued.  "  It  has  cost  us  dear/'  he 
said,  "to  return,  after  so  many  years  of  civilization,  to 
the  principles  which  characterize  the  barbarism  of  the 
earlier  ages  of  nations ;  but  we  have  been  constrained 
to  oppose  the  common  enemy  with  the  same  weapons 
which  he  used  against  us."t  Hence  the  readiness  of  the 
Baltic  powers  to  seize  six  hundred  British  ships  and 
cargoes,  delayed  by  contrary  winds,  when  the  system 
was  at  its  height  in  1810.  And  it  is  certain  that  if 
Napoleon  had  risen  above  the  vulgar  fallacies  of  the 
mercantile  system,  and  had  attacked  England's  food 
supply  from  abroad,  instead  of  trying  to  destroy  its 
money-making  commerce,  the  "  Blocus "  would  have 
vanquished  the  heroic  resistance  of  our  ancestors.^ 

♦  The  general  resentment  against  England's  maritime  policy  at  this 
time  found  lasting  expression  in  Schiller's  poem,  Der  Antritt  des  Neuen 
Jah  rhunderts — 

**  Seine  Handelsflotten  streckt  der  Britte 
Gierig  wie  Polypenarme  aus, 
Und  das  Reich  der  freien  Amphitrite 

Will  er  schliessen,  wie  sein  eignes  Haus* 
Zu  des  Sudpols  nie  erblickten  Sternen 

Dringt  sein  rastlos  ungehemmter  Lauf ; 
AUe  Inseln  spUrt  er,  alle  fernen 

Klisten — nur  das  Paradies  nicht  auf." 
t  Neither  the  blockade,  the  conscription,  nor  the  weight  of  taxation, 
were  able  to  prevent  the  growth  of  affluence,  or  to  excite  acute  discontent 
in  the  absence  of  all  public  discussion.  The  comfort  and  content  of  the 
middle  classes  are  significantly  recorded  in  the  inscriptions  in  the  Grand 
Livre.  While  in  1798,  when  the  annual  rente  was  25,111,785  francs,  there 
were  but  24,791  holders  of  stock;  in'iSio,  when  the  rente  was  56,730,583 
francs,  it  was  held  by  145,663  persons;  whereas  in  1820,  only  199,697 
persons  owned  172,784,838  francs  of  rente,  and  in  1830,  no  more  than 
195,370  investors  were  found  for  204,696,459  francs  of  rente. 

\  When  Professor  Cunningham  apologizes  for  the  mercantile  system  by 


108  HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

Misrule  of  Godoy  in  Spain. — From  1796  Spain 
had  served  France,  and  since  1800  it  had  obeyed 
Napoleon.  Its  king  was  a  cipher  ;  its  court  was  divided 
by  the  queen's  hatred  of  her  son,  the  Prince  of  Asturias ; 
and  its  government  was  in  the  hands  of  Manuel  Godoy, 
who  was  at  once  the  paramour  of  the  queen  and  the 
favourite  of  the  royal  pair.  Godoy's  policy  consisted  in 
a  simple-minded  purpose  to  seek  his  own  aggrandise- 
ment by  the  help  of  Napoleon ;  and  he  heedlessly 
sacrificed  the  country  in  order  to  earn  the  French 
potentate's  favour.  On  this  account  Spain  had  re- 
nounced Louisiana,  paid  tribute,  and  supplied  ships  and 
men  to  France.  On  this  account  it  had  suffered  the 
destruction  of  its  commerce,  the  discomfiture  of  its  fleet, 
and  the  loss  of  colonies.  Through  Godoy's  avarice  and 
incapacity  the  finances,  army,  and  navy  had  reached 
the  last  stage  of  confusion  and  decay.  The  administra- 
tion was  inconceivably  defective  and  corrupt.  These 
causes,  combined  with  recent  bad  harvests,  had  reduced 
the  people  to  great  material  distress  and  political  dis- 
content. By  1806  Godoy  had  come  to  think  that  he 
was  subjecting  Spain  to  a  bootless  servitude;  and  he 
made  preparations  for  passing  over  to  the  enemies  of 
France.  He  even  called  the  nation  to  arms  against 
some  unspecified  foe  when  Prussia  entered  into  war. 
But  on  the  news  of  Jena  he  repented  of  his  treason,  and 
deprecated  Napoleon's  vengeance  by  palpable  false- 
hoods. Desirous  of  deferring  a  rupture  with  Spain, 
Napoleon  accepted  his  explanations,  demanding  only 
the  use  of  some  of  the  troops  raised  to  attack  him. 

the  logic  of  events,  saying  that  by  its  means  "  the  power  of  England  was 
so  maintained  that  Wellington  won  the  battle  of  Waterloo  and  Napoleon 
went  to  St.  Helena,"  the  answer  is — only  because  Napoleon  was  a  more 
convinced  mercantilist  than  any  Englishman  of  his  time.  It  was 
Napoleon's  mercantilism,  not  England's,  which  led  him  to  St.  Helena. 
In  1 788  our  imports  of  corn  began  permanently  to  exceed  our  exports. 


THE   NAPOLEONIC   DESPOTISM  109 

Nevertheless,  at  Tilsit  the  overthrow  of  the  Spanish 
Bourbons  was  provided  for. 

Napoleon  Invades  Spain,  1808. — But  Spain  was 
no  divided  Germany,  it  was  no  inchoate  Italy.  Not- 
withstanding its  strong  provincial  feelings,  it  was  a 
united  nation,  with  great  common  national  memories. 
For  its  liberty  and  national  integrity  it  rose  to  fight  to 
the  death.  The  ignorance,  barbarism,  and  bigotry  of 
the  people  only  contributed  to  their  fierce  self-devotion 
and  determination.  The  very  faults  of  the  nation  co- 
operated with  its  virtues  to  expose  the  monstrous  nature 
of  the  Napoleonic  despotism. 

The  Spanish  Insurrection.  Alliance  of  England 
with  Spain. — Of  this  Napoleon  anticipated  nothing. 
To  his  cold,  calculating  understanding,  all  that  is 
generously  impulsive  in  human  nature  was  strange. 
Countries  full  of  monks,  he  said,  are  easy  to  subjugate. 
He  sent  his  generals  to  quiet  the  country  with  as  much 
assurance  as  if  the  task  before  them  were  a  mere  police 
measure.  He  as  little  apprehended  that  his  efforts  to 
subdue  the  Spanish  people  would  be  endless  as  he  had 
expected  the  instantaneous  accord  which  united  against 
their  common  foe  the  newly-risen  Spanish  people  and 
the  long-resistant  English  nation.  In  a  moment  the 
ancient  hatred  between  the  two  races  was  cast  into 
abeyance  by  a  consciousness  that  they  were  both  fight- 
ing for  the  rights  of  peoples  against  the  caprices  of 
unscrupulous  autocracy.  "  From  the  moment  of  the 
rising  of  the  peapl^^,of  the  Pyrenean  peninsula,"  said 
Wordsworth  in  the  most  eloquent  of  his  prose  works, 
"  there  was  a  mighty  change  ;  we  were  instantaneously 
animated  ;  and,  from  that  moment,  the  contest  assumed 
the  dignity  which  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  anything  but 
hope  to  bestow."  The  people  of  England  rushed  to 
the  aid  of  the  Spanish  patriots  with  stores,  munitions, 


110         HISTORY  OF   MODERN   EUROPE 

money,  and  troops  ;  and  soon  Napoleon  had  reason  to 
know  that  nations  in  alliance  were  not,  like  their  rulers, 
to  be  easily  divided  by  jealousy  and  misfortune.* 

Franco-Austrian  War,  1809. — But  it  was  the 
Franco- Austrian  war  of  1809  which  first  showed  that 
Napoleon  was,  by  repulsion,  educating  Europe  up  to 
those  virtues  of  self-respect  which  were  England's  and 
Spain's  by  instinct.  Though  a  contest  avowedly  under- 
taken to  retrieve  Austria's  losses  by  the  Peace  of 
Presburg,  it  was  the  outcome  of  entirely  different 
motives  from  those  which  had  so  long  gambled  away 
the  lives  and  resources  of  the  monarchy's  subjects.  The 
obstinate  Thugut,  the  subtle  Cobenzl,  and  their  system 
of  greedy  and  unprincipled  annexation  had  been  brought 
into  disrepute  by  the  criticism  of  facts  and  the  pre- 
ferences of  Napoleon.  In  their  stead  ruled  Count  von 
Stadion,  who  cared  as  little  for  the  indiscriminate  terri- 
torial aggrandisement  of  the  Hapsburgs  as  he  cared 
much  for  the  independence  of  Germany.  But  since  the 
Peace  of  Tilsit  it  had  become  evident  that  Napoleon's 
schemes  endangered  the  very  existence  of  Austria  and 
Prussia ;  and  Stadion,  in  common  with  all  who  regarded 
the  situation  from  a  patriotic  point  of  view,  desired  to 
attack  and  thwart  them  on  the  first  favourable  occasion. 
The  Spanish  insurrection  offered  an  opportunity  and  an 
inspiriting  example.  It  suggested  to  Germany,  after 
the  late  years  of  distress,  the  worth  of  national  exertions 
and    the   community   of  national   interests.      Ancient 

*  The  first  object  of  Napoleon  in  subduing  Portugal  and  Spain  was  to 
injure  more  effectually  British  commerce.  In  this  he  showed  great  want  of 
foresight.  As  soon  as  the  Portuguese  government  was  driven  to  the 
Brazils,  it  necessarily  opened  them  to  English  trade ;  and  when  the 
Spanish  monarchy  was  overthrown,  its  colonies  revolted  from  the  control 
of  the  mother  country,  and  admitted  English  goods.  Hence  a  new  South 
American  trade  was  created  for  England  by  Napoleon  himself,  just  in 
time  to  countervail  the  great  falling  off  of  exports  to  the  United  States  in 
consequence  of  their  strained  relations  with  Great  Britain. 


THE   NAPOLEONIC  DESPOTISM  111 

animosities  were  sunk  in  a  common  feeling  of  woe. 
The  miserable  Prussia  was  no  longer  the  object  of 
jealous  dislike.  The  populations  of  the  Rheinbund 
were  looked  upon  as  brethren  in  misfortune.  The 
prestige  of  the  dynasties  had  received  a  grievous  shock 
from  the  parvenu  who  claimed  to  be  the  sole  fountain 
of  princely  power.  Hopes  of  a  national  liberation 
through  national  action  began  to  animate  the  bolder 
spirits ;  and  Stadion's  war  was  as  much  a  response  to 
these  feelings  as  it  was  a  last  venture  to  repair  the 
fortunes  of  the  Austrian  empire. 

Peace  of  Vienna,  1809. — Nevertheless  the  time  was 
not  yet  come  for  a  national  insurrection.  The  Tyrolese, 
brave,  with  "  a  few  strong  instincts  and  a  few  plain 
rules,"  flew  to  arms  at  the  first  signal ;  the  Black  Bruns- 
wickers  showed  how  private  enterprise  might  fight  for 
public  freedom  ;  the  desperate  attempts  of  Schill  and 
Dornberg  proved  the  hardihood  of  the  prevailing  dis- 
affection ;  but  these  were  isolated  efforts,  which  brought 
no  other  result  than  death  or  exile  to  those  engaged  in 
them.  The  real  conflict  was,  as  heretofore,  between  the 
regular  armies  of  the  two  belligerent  powers.  In  this 
sphere,  however,  the  new  spirit  was  not  without  influence. 
The  Austrian  army  was  reorganized  and  a  Landwehr 
instituted  with  more  than  customary  regard  for  individual 
worth  and  rational  method  ;  while  the  notorious  dila- 
toriness  of  Vienna  officialism  gave  way  to  an  energy 
which  succeeded  in  outstripping  the  vigilance  of  the 
French  Emperor.  For  once  the  army  of  the  Hapsburgs 
was  in  the  field  before  the  foe ;  for  once  it  seized  a 
considerable  advantage  by  the  celerity  and  sagacity  of 
its  movements.  Nevertheless,  the  battle  of  Wagram 
closed  the  desperately  contested  campaign,  and  left 
Austria  as  powerless  as  Prussia  after  Jena  to  escape  the 
worst  penalties  of  defeat. 


112  HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

'Wellington  in  Portugal. — At  this  time  Wellington 
alone  retained  confidence  in  the  cause  of  freedom.  He 
had  only  too  good  reason  to  think  little  of  the  Spanish 
armies,  and  he  underrated,  with  all  the  professional 
prejudice  of  the  British  regular  soldier,  the  effectiveness 
of  the  guerilla  warfare  which  the  Spanish  peasantry 
waged  with  furious  zeal  and  sanguinary  effect.  Yet 
when  the  Emperor  sent  such  vast  reinforcements  into 
the  peninsula  that  Andalusia,  the  soul  of  the  insurrec- 
tion, was  reduced  early  in  1810,  and  Cadiz  alone  resisted 
with  success,  he  refused  to  participate  in  the  dejected 
mood  of  his  countrymen.  It  was  Wellington  alone  who 
dared  to  relieve  the  Perceval  cabinet  from  acquiescing 
in  the  faint-hearted  demands  of  the  commercial  public 
by  taking  upon  himself  the  responsibility  of  contesting 
to  the  last  the  English  foothold  in  Portugal.  His  con- 
viction was  that,  if  Great  Britain  persistently  disputed 
the  French  occupation  of  Spain,  some  great  mis- 
adventure to  the  empire  would  eventually  afford  an 
opportunity  of  assuming  the  offensive  against  France 
itself.  Supported  by  this  prescient  hope,  he  was  content 
to  renounce  the  glory  of  attack  whenever  the  enemy's 
strength  made  action  hazardous.  Rather  than  risk  a 
disabling  defeat,  he  surrendered  the  ground  won  in  the 
hardships  of  the  field,  and,  combating  the  foe  with  the 
manoeuvres  of  retreat,  repulsed  him  with  starvation 
before  the  impregnable  lines  of  Torres  Vedras. 

Meanwhile  the  infatuation  of  Napoleon  rapidly 
induced  the  crisis  for  which  Wellington  waited.  Intent 
on  new  gratifications  to  his  ambition,  the  Emperor  left 
the  conduct  of  the  Peninsular  war  to  his  generals,  and 
devoted  himself  to  preparations  for  engaging  in  the 
most  stupendous  and  dangerous  military  enterprise  of 
modern  times. 

Napoleon's      Russian     Campaign,      1812.  —  The 


THE    NAPOLEONIC   DESPOTISM  113 

European  war,  which  commenced  with  the  invasion  of 
Russia,  summed  up  and  balanced  the  strength  and 
weakness  of  the  Napoleonic  empire.  When  the 
campaign  opened  Napoleon  commanded  more  than 
half  a  million  men  of  different  nations  and  languages. 
His  numerous  vassals  had  obediently  sent  large  con- 
tingents. Austria  had  acquiesced  in  the  logical 
consequences  of  the  matrimonial  alliance  into  which 
it  had  been  forced  by  the  war  of  1809  ;  Prussia  had 
been  compelled  to  furnish  its  quota  of  troops  together 
with  an  enormous  quantity  of  supplies.  Alexander,  on 
the  other  hand,  though  he  had  bought  peace  from  the 
Porte  by  renouncing  part  of  the  booty  assigned  to  him 
at  Tilsit,  and  had  purchased  the  alliance  of  Sweden  by 
the  promise  of  Norway,  was  able  to  muster  less  than 
half  this  number  of  men,  very  insufficiently  equipped. 
But  the  inexplicable  delays  of  his  enemy,  the  climate 
and  roads  of  his  inhospitable  land,  the  Fabian  tactics  of 
Barclay  de  Tolly,  and  the  resolute  temper  of  the 
fanatical  Muscovite,  eventually  reduced  the  two  armies 
to  a  like  level  of  misery.  When  the  fragments  of  the 
Grand  Army  recrossed  the  Niemen,  Napoleon's  imme- 
diately available  forces  were  but  little  superior  to  the 
jaded  remnants  of  the  pursuing  Russians. 

Insurrectionary  Spirit  in  Germany. — One  of  the 
most  misleading  fallacies  of  popular  history  is  the 
belief  that  the  retreat  from  Moscow  necessarily  involved 
the  destruction  of  the  empire.  Heavy  as  was  the  blow 
which  the  campaign  dealt  at  his  fortunes.  Napoleon's 
strategic  genius  and  reserve  forces,  especially  in  officers, 
left  him  still  the  most  formidable  power  in  Europe ;  and 
he  prepared  to  take  the  field  again  in  defence  of  an 
intact,  though  weakened,  empire.  This  aspect  of  the 
situation  was  fully  understood  by  continental  statesmen 
at  the  time.     Alexander  himself  hesitated  to  carry  the 


114         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

war  into  the  enemy's  country,  and  many  of  his  advisers 
counselled  an  unheroic  policy  of  petty  aggrandisement. 
Nor  in  all  probability  would  he  have  assumed  the  part 
of  a  general  liberator,  unless  he  had  been  urged  by 
German  patriots  to  initiate  a  rebellion  against  the 
French  yoke.  For  at  this  crisis  Napoleon  found  himself 
threatened  in  the  rear  by  an  insurrection  which  had 
never  entered  into  his  calculations  when  he  disposed 
his  garrisons  among  the  subject  people.  Fortresses, 
numerous  and  costly,  he  had  been  compelled  to  hold, 
for  his  rule  had  ignored  the  truth,  "  la  miglior  fortezza 
che  sia,  h  non  essere  odiato  dal  popolo."  The  outlay 
proved  to  be  waste,  and  the  waste  proved  to  be  fatal  to 
that  final  preponderance  of  force  on  which  the  Napo- 
leonic strategy  ever  depended  for  the  infliction  of 
decisive  defeat.  Yet  the  rebellion,  which  was  to  turn  a 
military  disaster  into  a  catastrophe,  and  was  to  convert 
threats  of  English  invasion  and  menaces  of  Russian 
Cossacks  into  triumphant  attacks  on  the  French  empire, 
differed  greatly  from  the  common  type  of  popular  ris- 
ings. Napoleon's  contempt  for  the  German  people  as  a 
national  body  was  no  failure  of  his  usual  sagacity.  The 
Germans  were  hardly  more  capable  of  spontaneous  and 
united  action  than  when  they  were  fettered  by  the 
authority  of  some  three  hundred  potentates ;  and  they 
ladppP  the  passionate  instincts  of  national  life  as  com- 
pletely as  they  had  lost  the  forms  of  an  independent 
national  existence.  But  among  those  who  had  been 
trained  to  follow  spirited  and  able  leaders,  the  ennobling 
influence  of  the  nation's  natural  chiefs  had  induced  a 
resolute  spirit  of  self-assertion,  which  common  suffering 
directed  towards  a  common  object. 

Intellectual  Revival  in  Germany. — Long  before 
this  time  the  desolation  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  had 
begun  to  pass   away ;    and   returning   prosperity   had 


THE  NAPOLEONIC  DESPOTISM  115 

enabled  the  more  fortunate  members  of  the  German 
people  to  move  beyond  the  sordid  cares  of  daily  life. 
More  than  half  a  century  had  elapsed  since  Lessing  had 
laid  the  foundation  on  which  was  reared  the  splendid 
fabric  of  modern  German  thought  and  poetry.  Since 
then,  literature  had  supplied  a  centre  round  which  the 
middle  classes  rallied  in  brotherly  communion.  Without 
calling  up  any  vivid  sense  of  unity,  this  intercourse 
gradually  diffused  a  vague  feeling  of  civic  toleration 
which  was  the  first  step  towards  national  concord.  But, 
what  was  of  more  immediate  benefit,  the  intellectual 
revival  braced  the  German  mind  by  repudiating  that 
habitual  deference  to  foreign  dogmatism  which  had 
oppressed  native  talent,  and  thwarted  indigenous  energy. 
Though  escape  from  the  pseudo-classicism  of  the 
stranger  was  achieved  only  by  passing  under  the  spell 
of  another  nation's  genius,  the  close  kinship  between 
the  English  and  German  mind  caused  the  change 
of  school  to  be  equivalent  to  an  act  of  self-assertion. 
The  citizens,  who  had  been  taught  by  tradition  that 
French  taste  and  authority  were  the  supreme  arbiters 
of  intellectual  and  artistic  excellence,  were  conveyed 
directly  to  the  tremendous  conclusion  that,  notwith- 
standing their  divisions,  notwithstanding  their  lan- 
guage, Germans  might  yet  possess  of  their  very  own 
the  substance  and  form  of  a  literature  worthy  of  a 
great  nation. 

Birth  of  German  Patriotism. — It  was  now  that  an 
eager  discontent,  a  nobly  misdirected  striving,  seized  the 
more  impulsive  youth.  The  Sturm  und  Drang  episode 
spent  its  undisciplined  forces.  And  men  arose  who 
were  fit  to  be  masters  at  such  a  time.  Kant  engaged 
the  intellects  of  the  thinkers  and  teachers  by  his  critical 
philosophy,  and  thence  led  them  to  an  ethical  creed  as 
exalted  and  severe  as  that  of  the  Roman  stoics.     In 


116         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

imaginative  literature  the  themes  of  freedom  and 
independence  received  fervid  celebration  ;  and  the  way- 
was  prepared  for  those  warlike  lyrics  of  Arndt,  Ruckert, 
and  Korner,  which,  as  even  Goethe  admitted,  had  some 
effect  in  uniting  together  Germans  at  the  moment  of 
battle.  Fichte,  Kant's  successor  in  philosophy,  and 
Schleiermacher,  the  theologian,  proclaimed  the  worth  of 
patriotic  enthusiasm  and  national  integrity ;  while 
gymnastics,  lately  conspicuous  among  the  novelties  of 
pedagogic  reformers,  were  fanatically  commended  by 
old  Jahn  as  a  strengthener  alike  of  the  muscles  and 
character. 

Leadership  of  the  Prussian  State. — A  long  dis- 
tance, however,  separates  nascent  aspiration  from  mature 
effort.  Literary  culture  is  not  only  slow  to  diffuse  itself 
through  the  masses  of  a  nation,  but  in  itself  it  possesses 
no  political  content.  Tradition  hands  down  from  the 
rough  shifts  of  expediency  the  different  poHtical  types 
which  modern  societies  develop  according  to  their 
necessities  and  measures  of  culture.  And  in  Germany 
at  this  time  there  existed  only  the  monarchical  form  of 
government  from  which  renewed  mental  activity  could 
draw  political  initiative  and  guidance.  Here  it  was  that 
Napoleon  had  most  deeply  injured  the  German  nation. 
With  one  exception  he  had  denationalized — the  ex- 
pression occurred  in  one  of  his  Lettres  Mdites — every 
monarchy.  The  exception,  too,  he  had  degraded  as  low 
as  conquest  could  reduce,  without  annihilating,  a  state. 
Not  content  with  driving  Prussia  into  a  corner  of  North- 
Eastern  Europe,  he  had  kept  it  fast  in  the  bonds  of 
affliction  by  exacting  an  indemnity  too  heavy  for  the 
impoverished  country  to  bear ;  he  had  plundered  its 
daily  sustenance  to  feed  the  Grand  Army  ;  he  had 
forbidden  it  to  raise  a  military  force  of  any  strength ;  he 
had  forced  it  to  take  arms  against  its  intimate,  Russia ; 


THE  NAPOLEONIC  DESPOTISM  117 

he  had  obliged  Frederick  William  to  submit  ignomi- 
niously  to  his  dictation  in  matters  of  domestic  govern- 
ment. Nevertheless,  stricken  as  it  was  from  without, 
and  degenerate  as  it  was  within,  the  Prussian  monarchy- 
had  not  fallen  so  low  as  to  be  incapable  of  vindicating, 
on  a  favourable  opportunity,  its  right  to  be  the  champion 
of  independence  in  Germany. 

This  prerogative  was  Prussia's  by  virtue  of  its 
achievement  of  forming  from  among  Germans  one 
independent  European  power.  Its  capacity  for  a  heroic 
effort  of  recovery  was  assured  by  the  history  of  its 
development.  Raised  to  a  commanding  position  by  the 
severe  discipline  of  able  rulers,  it  was  prepared  to  make 
great  sacrifices  at  the  instance  of  trusted  leaders.  Its 
service  had  attracted  from  other  parts  of  Germany 
talent  which  could  not  find  worthier  employment  than 
that  afforded  by  the  Hohenzollerns.  It  is  true  that  the 
monarchy  had  suffered  much  from  the  blunders  of 
incapacity.  But  this  was  due  partly  to  adventitious 
causes,  and  partly  to  the  confusion  which  Frederick  the 
Great's  method  of  personal  government  had  necessarily 
produced  when  weaker  men  tried  to  conduct  by  it  the 
affairs  of  an  enlarged  state. 

Reform  of  the  Prussian  Army. — Still  Prussia  was 
nothing  if  not  military  ;  and  Napoleon  appeared  to  have 
effectually  consigned  it  to  insignificance  when  he  insisted 
that  its  army  should  be  limited  to  42,000  men.*  More 
fatal,  however,  were  the  shortcomings  of  the   service 

*  By  a  convention  at  Paris,  September  8,  1808.  The  number  was  the 
same  as  that  of  the  Prussian  army  which  attempted  to  invade  France  in 
1792,  and  was  repulsed  by  the  cannonade  of  Valmy.  The  erroneous 
number,  40,000,  to  be  found  in  English  books,  even  so  lately  as  volume 
xi.  of  the  Political  History  of  England^  seems  to  have  originated  in  a 
mistake  in  Schlosser's  History,  though  Schlosser's  authority  is  good  only 
for  what  he  experienced  himself,  especially  in  the  intellectual  and  moral 
spheres. 


N 


118         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

itself.  Before  Jena  the  army  had  been  composed  of 
slaves  drilled  into  machines,  of  patrician  dunces  mar- 
tialized  by  arrogance  and  vice,  and  of  commanders 
stricken  with  years  and  decrepit  in  understanding.  By 
legal  and  social  distinctions  it  was  severed  from  the 
mass  of  the  nation  ;  and  so  offensive  was  the  demeanour 
of  its  members,  so  alien  to  civic  life  were  its  tone  and 
constitution,  that  the  Prussian  burghers  contemplated 
with  positive  satisfaction  the  overthrow  of  the  soldiery 
kept  for  their  defence  and  control.  Prussia,  therefore, 
continuing  to  follow  in  its  fallen  condition  the  main  law 
of  its  existence,  accomplished  the  work  of  military 
reform  with  a  thoroughness  and  severity  which  gave  it 
again  the  foremost  place  among  the  monarchies  of  the 
sword.  Nay,  the  repetition  extended  yet  further.  As 
its  old  professional  army  had  been  the  highest  develop- 
ment of  what  had  originally  been  invented  by  France, 
so  now  its  new  military  system  was  but  the  full  applica- 
tion of  the  principle  of  citizen  armies,  first  realized 
by  the  Republic.  An  important  difference,  however, 
distinguished  Prussia's  share  in  this  second  transaction. 
Its  earlier  contributions  to  military  science  merely 
carried  to  an  extreme  result  a  system  which  had  already 
wrought  great  political  changes.  This  later  step  in 
army  organization  converted  the  desperate  expedient 
of  a  troubled  period  into  a  regular  institution  of  the 
state;  and  thus  directly  and  definitively  incorporated 
into  the  life  of  Europe  one  of  the  most  deep-reaching 
innovations  of  the  Revolution. 

Introduction  of  the  Short  Service  System. — The 
necessity  of  placing  the  Prussian  army  on  a  broader 
basis  gave  authority  to  a  few  distinguished  officers,  who 
were  anxious  to  entrust  the  defence  of  the  country  to 
the  people  as  Stein  had  entrusted  the  economy  of  pro- 
duction and  exchange.     One  of  these,  Gneisenau,  had 


THE  NAPOLEONIC  DESPOTISM  119 

made  memorable  one  of  the  few  heroic  episodes  in  the 
late  war  by  leading  the  citizens  with  his  soldiers  to  the 
defence  of  Kolberg.  Together  with  Clausewitz,  the  well- 
known  writer  on  strategy,  he  assisted  Scharnhorst  to 
bring  about  the  greatest  military  reform  of  modern 
times.  Scharnhorst  was  the  grandson  of  a  Hanoverian 
peasant,  and  the  son  of  a  non-commissioned  officer,  and 
his  fame  has  been  bruited  abroad  by  no  loud  feats  of  arms. 
Mortally  wounded  at  Gross  Gorschen,  he  lived  to  witness 
only  the  uncertain  commencement  of  the  war  for  which 
he  had  devotedly  prepared.  The  laurels  of  the  campaign 
fell  to  fiery  old  Bliicher  and  his  mentor  Gneisenau. 
Outwardly,  as  an  officer,  Scharnhorst  was  far  from 
being  what  we  call  smart  and  the  Prussians  called 
Stramm,  Yet  he  was  the  presiding  hero  of  the  war  of 
liberation.  He  it  was  who  reiterated  the  principle  that 
every  native  of  a  state  is  its  born  defender.  This  he 
said,  not  in  imitation  of  the  conscription  in  France,  but 
in  appeal  to  an  ordinance  of  Frederick  William  I., 
which  extravagant  exemption  had  rendered  almost 
nugatory.  From  him  came  the  device  of  keeping  the 
whole  manhood  trained  to  arms.  Without  infringing 
the  letter  of  Napoleon's  injunctions,  or  exceeding  the 
resources  of  the  state,  he  drafted  the  recruits  into  the 
reserve  after  a  short  period  of  service  with  the  colours. 
He  thus  gave  a  new  meaning  to  the  principle  of  citizen 
armies.  Heretofore  conscription  had  simply  meant  a 
compulsory  levy  from  among  the  citizens,  such  as  the 
French  Republic  had  first  enforced  in  1798  at  the 
motion  of  Jourdan,  when  the  danger  of  the  country 
ceased  to  induce  a  sufficient  influx  of  volunteers. 
Henceforth  citizen  armies  were  to  be  armed  nations. 
The  industrial  type  of  nineteenth-century  civilization 
was  to  assume  a  militant  and  monarchical  aspect  hardly 
less   characteristic  than  that   of  the   age  when   man's 


120         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

status  was  determined  by  military  service  instead  of  by 
contract.* 

Prussia  turns  against  Napoleon,  1813. — Chief  of 
the  many  difficulties  which  hindered  Prussia  from  wel- 
coming the  arrival  of  the  victorious  Russians  by  an 
insurrection  against  the  French,  was  the  anomaly  that 
the  monarchy  was  technically  at  war  with  Alexander. 
More  than  one  French  garrison  was  overpowered  by  the 
people ;  but  in  this  country  of  impassive  discipline  no 
general  movement  was  possible  till  the  word  of  com- 
mand was  given  from  headquarters.  Yet  such  was  the 
tension  of  the  situation  that  York,  the  commander  of 
Napoleon's  Prussian  contingent,  was  impelled  to  sacri- 
fice an  intense  attachment  to  military  subordination  by 
concluding  on  his  own  responsibility  a  convention  of 
neutrality  with  the  Russian  general.  This  loyal  act  of 
mutiny  precipitated  the  inevitable  rupture.  Though 
the  Prussian  government  repudiated  the  convention 
and  apologized  to  Napoleon,  it  prepared  to  pass  over 
to  the  enemy.  Two  months  later  all  prudential  reserve 
was  abandoned,  and  the  two  monarchs  concluded  the 
treaty  of  Kalisch,  with  the  purpose  of  together  prosecut- 
ing the  war  till  Prussia  had  recovered  an  equivalent  to 
its  lost  territories. 

Insurrection  in  Prussia. — Thus  officially  declared, 
the  war  of  liberation  was  borne  along  with  popular 
impetuosity.  Already  Stein  had  been  enabled  by  the 
prevailing  enthusiasm  to  organize  the  Landwehr  in  East 
Prussia.  Volunteers  flocked  from  all  sides  to  the  re- 
cruiting stations.  The  people  were  almost  offended 
by  the   proclamation   of  conscription  when  voluntary 

*  At  the  time  of  their  inception  the  new  armies  were  suspected  of 
directly  encouraging  democracy.  Both  Wellington  and  Alexander  ex- 
pressed fear  that  the  monarchical  authority  in  Prussia  would  be  shaken  by 
the  citizen  army  acting  as  if  it  were  a  French  national  guard. 


THE   NAPOLEONIC  DESPOTISM  121 

enlistment  more  than  sufficed  to  fill  the  ranks.  Con- 
tributions to  the  impoverished  government  were  gladly- 
yielded  ;  and  one  still  finds  in  Prussian  families  silver 
bearing  evidence  that  it  was  returned  from  the  abun- 
dance offered  to  the  state  at  this  time.  Most  eager  for 
the  fray  were  the  students  and  educated  classes,  those 
who  astonished  the  Parisians  by  thronging  to  the  Louvre 
when  victory  had  been  won  by  sheer  fighting.  Yet 
none  were  too  mean  to  participate  in  the  joy  of  insur- 
rection, none  too  poor  to  leave  their  homes  for  the  war. 
Some  even  sold  everything  they  possessed  to  arm 
themselves  as  volunteers.  Supported  by  this  enthu- 
siasm, Scharnhorst's  scheme  rapidly  organized  the  whole 
available  manhood  of  the  country.  His  bourgeoisie  armiey 
as  Napoleon  contemptuously  called  it,  soon  counted  a 
combatant  for  every  seventeen  inhabitants,  exclusive  of 
the  reinforcements  obtained  during  the  war. 

Battle  of  Leipzig,  October  16-19,  1813. — It  was 
fitting,  therefore,  that  the  campaign  which  ensued, 
marked  as  it  was  by  many  vicissitudes,  should  at  last 
culminate  in  the  battle  of  Leipzig,  the  volkerschlacht^ 
the  battle  between  a  man  and  the  nations,  when  by 
mere  weight  of  numbers  the  French  were  completely 
defeated. 

Deposition  of  Napoleon,  1814. — Again  Napoleon 
returned  to  Paris  to  collect  a  new  army  ;  again  the 
allies  strove  to  arrange  a  durable  peace.  The  combined 
monarchs  were  not  of  stout  heart,  and  their  interests 
were  far  from  identical.  They  only  agreed  in  wishing 
to  make  Napoleon  yield  enough  of  his  conquests  to 
bring  Europe  into  a  tolerable  state  of  equilibrium.  But 
the  child  of  fortune  received  their  advances  only  to 
gain  time.  With  marvellous  obstinacy  he  held  to  the 
belief  in  his  own  invincibility.  He  preferred  the  risks 
of  a  perilously  unequal  campaign  to  the  assured  results 


122         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

of  an  advantageous  compromise.  Nevertheless,  though 
favoured  by  the  reluctance  of  Austria  to  consent  to  his 
overthrow  and  the  consequent  purposeless  movements 
of  the  allies,  though  he  handled  his  raw  conscripts  with 
masterly  skill,  though  he  won  victories  and  extorted 
from  the  divided  monarch  more  offers  of  peace,  he  was 
at  last  reduced  to  acquiesce  in  the  utter  collapse  of  his 
fortunes  by  accepting  Elba  for  a  kingdom,  four  hundred 
of  his  guardsmen  for  an  army,  and  two  million  francs 
(which  were  never  paid)  for  a  revenue. 

The  Hundred  Days.  March-June,  1815. — Governed 
by  such  a  temperament,  relying  with  such  good  reason 
on  discord  among  his  conquerors,  Napoleon  only  fol- 
lowed the  law  of  his  existence  when  he  returned  to 
France  at  the  earliest  possible  opportunity.  None  the 
less,  however,  was  the  moment  chosen  unfavourable 
to  his  venture.  Aware  that  the  powers  had  fallen 
into  dissensions  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  persuaded 
that  the  Bourbons  had  made  themselves  unpopular,  he 
forgot  that  France  was  exhausted  and  weary  of  war, 
and  he  failed  to  realize  that  the  allies  were  still  at  one 
with  regard  to  him.  But  his  was  not  the  nature  to 
wait  till  the  armies  of  his  enemies  were  reduced,  till  the 
terror  of  his  name  had  diminished,  till  the  folly  of  the 
Bourbons  had  made  them  intolerable  to  their  subjects. 
Less  than  a  year  after  his  banishment  he  landed  near 
Cannes  with  a  few  hundred  trusty  followers.  His 
presence  frightened  Louis,  first  into  liberal  concessions, 
and  then  into  ignominious  flight.  Once  more  he  occu- 
pied the  imperial  throne.  Heedful,  however,  of  men's 
leanings  towards  constitutionalism,  he  promulgated  an 
additional  act  to  the  constitution  of  the  empire,  and 
convoked  the  Champ  de  Mai  to  show  that  the  period  of 
absolutism  had  ceased.  Naturally  his  declarations  met 
with  little  faith ;  nor  were  his  peaceful  professions  more 


THE   NAPOLEONIC   DESPOTISM  123 

successful.  The  monarchs  refused  to  receive  his  de- 
spatches ;  they  denounced  as  an  outlaw  Napoleon 
Bonaparte,  as  they  called  the  man  whom  they  had 
expressly  permitted  to  retain  the  title  of  emperor. 
At  first  they  declared  against  him  as  a  traitor  by 
promising  Louis  help  to  quell  rebellion. 

Napoleon's  Last  Campaign. — Willingly,  and  yet 
unwillingly,  Napoleon  left  Paris  for  his  last  campaign. 
Gladly  he  escaped  from  the  obligation  of  personally 
submitting  to  democratic  opinion  and  constitutional 
institutions ;  eagerly  he  hoped  to  return  in  victory  to 
crush  the  wanton  element  beneath  his  former  yoke. 
But  it  was  with  some  apprehension  that  he  entered  into 
a  new  war  with  Europe.  His  army,  though  composed 
for  the  most  part  of  veterans  returned  from  garrison 
duty  and  foreign  captivity,  was  less  perfectly  organized 
and  staffed  than  formerly,  and  it  was  far  too  small  to 
cope  with  the  united  forces  of  his  opponents.  Revolu- 
tion, too,  at  home  was,  he  knew,  imminent  in  case  of 
reverse.  Owing  to  illness,  moreover,  he  retained  only 
a  portion  of  the  decision  and  energy  which  had  subdued 
the  Continent.  Yet  his  immediate  overthrow  was  not 
achieved  by  force  of  numbers,  nor  were  his  rapid  move- 
ments without  success.  Both  Wellington  and  Bllicher 
were  disconcerted  by  his  sudden  onset ;  and  at  Water- 
loo he  launched  forth  his  legions  in  startling  combina- 
tions after  the  bold  and  direct  fashion  which  in  late 
years  had  especially  characterized  his  tactics.  In 
numerical  strength  he  was  not  taken  at  a  disadvantage 
till  the  Prussian  attack,  which  decided  his  last  field. 
Throughout  the  campaign,  however,  he  under-estimated 
the  foe  he  had  to  deal  with.  His  losses  in  those  few 
days  were  enormous,  as  Professor  Oman  has  recently 
shown.  Blucher's  rally  after  Ligny,  and  his  courageous 
advance  from  Wavre  to  Wellington's  help,  never  came 


IM         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

within  his  calculations;  and  assuredly  he  would  not 
have  delayed,  on  account  of  the  wetness  of  the  ground 
for  his  guns,  the  attack  on  Wellington's  army  if  he  had 
suspected  that  the  English  would  hold  their  ground 
against  the  charges  of  his  veterans,  and  that  the 
Prussians  would  elude  Grouchy  and  arrive  on  the  field 
of  battle.  Met  by  the  shock  of  a  stubborn  resistance, 
his  army  was  shattered  beyond  the  possibility  of  an 
orderly  retreat,  and  his  last  venture  terminated  in  a 
wild  flight  before  the  hosts  of  Austria  and  Russia  had 
been  able  to  take  part  in  the  war. 

Thenceforward  this  mightiest  of  history's  instru- 
ments remained  dead  to  the  world  in  an  irksome 
captivity  till,  on  May  5,  1821,  disease  freed  him  from 
a  life  of  pain  and  discontent. 

Second  Return  of  the  Bourbons.  Reaction  in 
France. — The  warning  of  the  Hundred  Days  sufficed 
not  to  prevent  the  Bourbons  from  continuing  to  commit 
blunders  of  perversity  and  incapacity  ;  but  circumstances 
condoned  their  faults  till  Louis  XVIH.  was  incontest- 
ably  seated  on  the  throne  of  France.  They  even 
enjoyed  the  benefit  of  a  great  revulsion  of  public  feeling 
in  their  favour.  This  reaction,  expressing  as  it  did  a 
partial  reversion  of  the  national  mind  to  the  old 
monarchical  system  after  twenty-five  years  of  blind 
experiment,  containing  as  it  did  the  numerous  and 
diverse  elements  which  these  years  of  change  had 
irrevocably  incorporated  into  French  life,  surrounded 
as  it  was  by  fundamental  consequences  of  the  Revolu- 
tion which  the  researches  of  historians  alone  have  been 
able  to  reveal  fully  by  contrast  with  the  old  order, 
actuated  as  it  was  more  by  a  weariness  of  war  than  by  a 
love  of  peace, — this  reaction,  with  all  its  attendant  illu- 
sions, anomalies,  and  animosities,  formed  for  better  or 
worse  the  groundwork  of  modern  France. 


THE  NAPOLEONIC   DESPOTISM  125 

Congress  of  Vienna,  1814-15. — A  resettlement  of 
Europe  was  provided  for  by  the  first  Peace  of  Paris, 
and  a  congress  of  the  powers  met  at  Vienna  in  Novem- 
ber of  the  following  year  to  determine  its  details.  The 
occasion  was  naturally  one  of  great  display  and 
festivity.  When,  after  wars  protracted  and  extended 
beyond  any  recorded  in  authentic  history,  all  the  great 
ones  of  Europe,  the  rulers  and  plenipotentiaries  of  every 
state  except  Turkey,  met  to  agree  upon  the  conditions 
of  a  general  pacification,  a  welcome  opportunity  was 
afforded  to  rank  and  wealth  to  celebrate  with  profuse 
indulgence  the  return  of  peace  to  the  harassed  peoples. 
The  occasion  also  invited  serious  consideration  of  the 
weal  of  nations.  Never  before  had  rulers  been  given 
a  better  opportunity  for  arriving  in  unison  at  plans  for 
the  better  discharge  of  their  trust ;  never  before  had 
European  society  been  in  such  a  plastic  condition  ;  never 
had  more  enlightened  statesmanship  been  at  the  com- 
mand of  law-givers  and  diplomatists.  But  the  time 
when  reforms  came  from  above  was  past.  Now  princes 
were  to  be  either  executors  of  the  people's  mandates  or 
jealous  guardians  of  their  own  dynastic  interests. 

The  Principle  of  Legitimacy. — Fitly  enough  did 
they  meet  in  the  capital  of  the  Hapsburgs.  Here,  as 
guests  of  a  dynasty  which  had  risen  to  the  proudest 
rank  by  trafficking  in  diverse  races,  they  surveyed  the 
wreck  of  the  fallen  empire,  and  disputed  with  one 
another  over  the  fragments  at  disposal  without  regard 
to  national  needs  and  feelings.  "  At  Vienna,"  laments 
Gervinus,  **  there  was  a  statistical,  but  no  national, 
committee."  Yet  this  policy  wanted  not  a  principle. 
The  princes  pleaded  their  titles  by  the  grace  of  God, 
though  some  wore  crowns  by  the  favour  of  Napoleon. 
Thence  they  supported  their  claims  by  the  argument 
which  Talleyrand  dignified  with  the  name  of  "legitimacy." 


126         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

Fouchd  hoped  that  the  new  catchword  would  be  less 
productive  of  woe  than  "  equality"  had  been ;  and  at  one 
stage  of  the  debate  it  seemed  that  Europe's  troubles 
would  be  immediately  renewed  by  the  principle's  ad- 
herents themselves.  But  the  congress  escaped  from  a 
violent  disruption  to  bring  forth  in  due  time  its  fully 
matured  fruit  of  conflict  and  distress.  It  dispersed, 
leaving  its  most  authoritative  decisions  to  be  cancelled 
within  sixty  years  by  the  sufferings  of  the  peoples  whose 
victory  it  had  assembled  to  convert  into  a  lasting 
peace. 

Decisions  of  the  Congress. — Russia — France — 
Prussia. — Hence  the  great  democratic  movement  came 
to  strengthen  temporarily  the  chief  absolute  monarchies. 
Russia  not  only  kept  Finland  and  Bessarabia,  with  the 
part  of  Moldavia  it  had  conquered  from  Turkey,  but  it 
succeeded  in  getting  most  of  the  Duchy  of  Warsaw. 
Regard  for  the  balance  of  power  caused  France  to  be 
left  nearly  as  strong  as  formerly.  This  decision  was 
only  arrived  at  after  a  lively  controversy.  But  most 
dangerously  provocative  of  contention  were  the  demands 
of  Prussia.  This  state  had  been  promised  a  restoration 
of  power  which  should  make  it  equal  to  what  it  had 
been  before  the  Peace  of  Tilsit,  but  it  considered  that 
its  deeds  in  the  War  of  Liberation  entitled  it  to  an 
accession  of  strength.  Its  statesmen  then  forgot,  and 
its  historians  do  not  perceive  now,  how  contemptible  it 
appeared  to  the  world  from  the  beginning  of  the  revo- 
lutionary wars  to  the  insurrection  of  1813,  and  how 
slightly  its  fortunate  effort  was  appreciated  by  con- 
temporaries in  consequence.  Its  demand  for  the  whole 
of  Saxony  accordingly  encountered  all  the  hostility 
which  jealousy  and  conflicting  interests  could  engender, 
without  enlisting  any  impartial  support.  The  position 
of  Saxony  was  dubious.     Its  king  had  insisted  upon 


THE  NAPOLEONIC   DESPOTISM  127 

adhering  to  the  cause  of  Napoleon  till  he  had  been 
taken  prisoner  by  the  Allies  after  Leipzig.  As  a 
German  state,  Saxony  was  guilty  of  treason  against 
the  German  nation  ;  but  then  it  was  doubtful  whether 
there  was  a  German  nation  against  which  treason  could 
be  committed.  To  other  states  independence  had  been 
guaranteed  late  in  the  war ;  and  if  Saxony  had  a 
sovereign  right  to  wage  war  as  it  chose,  there  seemed 
no  reason  why  its  king  should  not  retain  with  the  rest 
his  Divinely  delegated  commission  after  having  atoned 
for  his  defeat.  In  the  end,  Prussia  got  the  larger  but 
more  thinly  populated  half  of  Saxony,  which  with 
various  additions  and  some  restorations  gave  it  a  larger 
population,  though  not  so  large  an  area  of  territory, 
than  before.  It  was  divided  into  two  portions  of  un- 
equal size  with  insecure  frontiers,  but  it  was  much  more 
compact  than  after  the  last  partition  of  Poland,  and  its 
population,  though  two-fifths  Catholic  and  three-fifths 
Protestant,  was  now  almost  entirely  German. 

Austria  and  Italy.  Sardinia. — If  Prussia  thus  un- 
wittingly laid  the  foundation  of  a  future  German  Empire, 
the  Austro-Hungarian  monarchy  was  believed  by  Metter- 
nich  to  be  invested  with  permanent  supremacy  in  Central 
Europe  and  the  Italian  peninsula.  So  profitably  had 
this  wily  minister  preyed  upon  the  necessities  of  the 
allies  before  consenting  to  join  them  in  the  war  of  1813, 
that  the  state,  which  had  done  least  to  win  the  common 
victory,  emerged  from  its  misfortunes  with  some  millions 
of  subjects  more  than  it  possessed  in  1792.  While  it 
renounced  its  former  troublesome  province  of  Belgium 
and  its  positions  in  South- West  Germany,  it  received 
back  all  that  Napoleon  had  taken  from  it,  together  with 
the  old  Venetian  states,  except  the  Ionian  Islands. 
Italy  was  so  parcelled  out  that  everything  was  favour- 
able to  Austrian  influence  except  the  return  of  the  King 


128         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

of  Sardinia  to  the  continent,  who  received  besides  Pied- 
mont, Savoy,  and  Nice,  the  former  republic  of  Genoa. 

Germany. — In  the  settlement  of  Germany,  Metter- 
nich's  tactics  were  also  successful.  As  a  condition  of 
Austrian  support  in  the  late  war,  he  had  obliged  the 
allies  to  engage  to  respect  the  independence  of  the 
Rheinbund  states.  Germany's  political  institutions  thus 
came  to  number  two  military  monarchies,  four  king- 
doms, one  electorate,  six  grand-duchies,  fourteen  duchies 
and  principalities,  and  the  four  free  towns,  Bremen, 
Hamburg,  Lubeck,  and  Frankfurt-on-Main.  This  dis- 
tribution of  sovereign  power  represented  a  great  advance 
in  organization  since  the  pre-revolutionary  epoch,  but 
it  afforded  no  practicable  basis  for  the  erection  of  a 
sound  national  polity.  Such  a  substitute  for  the  old 
empire  was  well  adapted  to  Metternich's  purposes. 
Austria's  diplomatic  position  assured  it  the  advantage 
over  its  rival  in  unconstrained  dealing  with  the  smaller 
states.  With  them  it  envied  and  dreaded  the  aggran- 
disement of  the  Hohenzollerns ;  with  them  it  sought 
to  restrain  Prussian  encroachment  by  fortifying  the 
independence  of  the  minor  princes. 

Proposals  of  reactionary  enthusiasts  for  a  restoration 
of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  were  readily  disposed  of  by 
the  unwillingness  of  Austria  and  every  one  else  to 
submit  to  its  unprofitable  obligations  and  restraints. 
Schemes  like  Stein's  for  the  subjection  of  the  states  to 
a  supreme  national  parliament  were  decisively  negatived 
by  the  spirit  which  induced  Wurtemberg  and  Bavaria 
to  declare  that  their  peoples  and  Prussia's  could  never 
be  assimilated  into  one  nationality.  After  some 
months  spent  in  useless  discussion,  a  Deutscher  Bund 
was  formed  for  the  purpose  of  preserving  the  security 
of  Germany  from  without,  and  the  integrity  of  the 
single  states  within.     It  was  adorned  with  an  ostensible 


THE   NAPOLEONIC  DESPOTISM  129 

provision  for  popular  representation  in  the  government 
of  the  different  states  ;  but  the  worth  of  its  disciplinary- 
articles  was  made  to  depend  on  the  authority  of  a  Diet 
at  Frankfurt-on-Main,  presided  over  by  the  plenipoten- 
tiary of  the  Emperor  of  Austria. 

Netherlands,  Scandinavia,  Switzerland. — With  a 
view  to  erecting  a  barrier  to  France  on  the  north,  the 
Congress  united  Belgium  and  Holland  intc^a  kingdom 
for  the  Prince  of  Orange.  He  took  the  title  of  William 
I.  of  the  United  Netherlands ;  but  the  union  was  ill- 
assorted,  and  his  kingdom  contained  from  the  first  the 
elements  of  disruption.  To  Sweden  was  ceded  Norway 
by  the  Danes.  The  frontiers  of  Spain,  Portugal,  and  of 
Turkey  since  the  peace  of  Bucharest  were  left  untouched. 
Switzerland  was  found  to  require  but  little  change  in  its 
constitution.  Three  cantons — Neuchatel,  Wallis,  and 
Geneva — were  added  to  the  nineteen,  and  the  whole 
number  were  united  into  a  Swiss  confederation. 

Moral  Gain  of  Great  Britain. — From  the  dispen- 
sation which  thus  finally  set  out  the  territorial  ground- 
work of  modern  Europe,  England  could  only  receive 
permission  to  retain  Malta,  Heligoland,  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope,  Guiana,  Mauritius,  and  a  few  other  of  its 
conquests,  while  it  was  entrusted  with  the  protection,  or 
rather  temporary  dominion,  of  the  republic  of  the  Ionian 
Isles.  But  what  material  aggrandizement  an  insular 
character  obliged  it  to  forego  was  fully  equalled  by  the 
prestige  and  moral  influence  which  its  fortitude  and 
efforts  had  deservedly  earned.  Having  entered  into 
conflict  with  a  reputation  blemished  by  the  mishaps  of 
the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Great  Britain 
emerged  as  a  heroic  example  for  all  continental  peoples. 
It  had  won  that  respect  which  for  long  was  to  give 
weight  to  unarmed  utterance. 

British  Measures  against  Piracy  and  the  Slave 


130         HISTORY  OF   MODERN   EUROPE 

Trade. — Nevertheless,  it  is  from  this  time  that  we  must 
date  that  curious  belief  of  continental  peoples  that  the 
English  are  a  race,  made  to  puzzle,  and  destined  to 
prevail.  Before  withdrawing  from  active  participation 
in  continental  affairs,  the  English  government  sent  its 
ships  to  break  up  the  Algerian  corsairs,  though  these 
prosperous  free-booters  had  abstained  from  attacking 
British  commerce  in  order  to  prey  the  more  securely 
upon  those  marines  which  had  been  deprived  of  protec- 
tion by  the  fortunes  of  naval  war.  Since  the  Peace  of 
Utrecht,  England  had  been  the  great  slave-trader  of  the 
world.  Indeed,  the  Assiento  contract  had  been  one  of 
the  few  conditions  of  that  peace  which  gave  unqualified 
satisfaction  in  England.  At  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  as 
we  read  in  the  works  of  foreign  historians,  among  the 
rewards  seized  by  the  grasping  islanders  for  their 
obduracy  against  Napoleon,  the  general  abandonment 
of  the  slave-trade  was  the  one  most  valued,  most  un- 
deniable, and  most  incomprehensible.  Thus,  touched 
to  fine  issues,  first  appeared  in  European  politics  that 
spirit  of  tenderness  which  had  been  evoked  by  the 
religious  revival  of  Wesley  among  all  grades  of 
England's  industrial  society. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   QUICKENING   OF  GERMANY,  ITALY, 
AND   SPAIN 

"  On  reconnatt  que  le  plus  puissant  des  hommes  a  toujours  6t6 
entraine  par  quelque  chose  de  plus  puissant  que  lui,  que  la  paix 
n'a  jamais  6t6  entre  ses  mains,  qu'un  Dieule  poussait  sans  reldche, 
que  presque  tout  I'univers  est  son  complice." — QuiNET. 

Napoleon  an  Agent  of  the  Revolution. — It  is  a 
very  shortsighted  opinion  which  pronounces  Napoleon 
to  be  the  negator  of  the  Revolution,  the  avenger  of  the 
dishonoured  and  maltreated  past.  Though  he  was 
a  scorner  of  democracy,  an  expounder  of  a  ruthless 
creed  of  despotism  and  brute  force,  he  was  yet  the 
most  successful  interpreter  and  most  cogent  enforcer 
of  the  "rights  of  man."  Blood  and  deceit  were  his 
weapons,  personal  supremacy  his  aim,  but  he  was 
compelled  by  what  was  true  and  inevitable  in  the 
Revolution  to  employ  his  power  for  the  enfranchise- 
ment of  peoples,  to  practise  law  and  justice,  and  to 
dispense  the  blessings  of  equality,  at  the  same  time 
that  he  extorted  the  abject  submission  of  the  conquered. 
In  spite  of  his  evil  self,  he  was  the  armed  propagator  of 
a  more  generous  social  order.  Like  Mephistopheles, 
he  was — 

"  Ein  Theil  Ton  jener  Kraft, 
Die  stets  das  Bose  will  und  stets  das  Gute  schaflFt." 

Without  him  it  is  doubtful  whether  France  would  have 

131 


132         HISTORY   OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

embraced  irrevocably  the  Revolution's  maxims  of 
natural  equity  and  human  freedom  before  submitting  to 
a  restoration  ;  without  him  it  is  certain  that  the  peoples 
of  Germany,  Italy,  and  Spain  would  have  travailed 
long  ere  they  overcame  their  terror  of  the  Revolution's 
excesses,  and  extricated  themselves  from  what  remained 
of  the  barbarism  of  the  feudal  ages. 

Napoleon's  Influence  on  Germany. — In  no  part 
of  Europe  did  the  empire's  fall  obliterate  all  the  good 
that  it  had  bestowed  with  the  bad  ;  but  in  the  states  of 
the  Rheinbund,  Napoleon's  influence  left  most  efl"ects  of 
substantial  value.  These  states,  which  he  had  con- 
solidated and  strengthened,  became  more  ambitious  to 
play  a  respectable  part  in  the  government  of  Europe. 
The  crowns  strove  to  overcome  finally  the  feudal 
nobility,  and  in  trying  to  exercise  absolute  sovereignty 
they  approached  the  impartial  rule  of  the  Imperial 
system  of  administration.  In  some  instances  the  efforts 
of  a  small  principality  to  ape  an  empire  were  ludicrous, 
but  in  most  the  result  was  beneficial  to  subjects  and 
rulers  alike.  Along  with  the  torpor  of  government  were 
removed  the  shackles  of  the  people.  The  mediaeval 
order  was  almost  entirely  repudiated.  Serfage,  privi- 
leges, petty  tyranny,  and  perverted  justice,  were 
generally  exchanged  for  the  Code,  equable  taxation, 
and  the  common  right  of  all  to  serve  their  state.  Ad- 
vantage, too,  redounded  to  the  German  nation  as  a 
whole  as  well  as  to  its  divisions.  French  innovations 
destroyed  incurious  reverence  for  the  existent.  By 
summarily  amalgamating  electorates,  free  towns,  and 
bishoprics,  Napoleon  forced  Germans  to  abate  some- 
what of  their  hatreds  and  jealousies,  and  to  regard  one 
another  as  countrymen,  at  least  in  relation  to  foreigners. 
The  War  of  Liberation  banded  them  together  for  a 
moment  in  behalf  of  a  common  cause.     Furthermore, 


THE   QUICKENING  OF  GERMANY        133 

if  it  be  true  that  to  present  clearly  a  question  is  to  go 
halfway  to  its  answer,  his  supremacy  half  solved  the 
great  problem  of  German  politics  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  As  long  as  the  form  of  the  old  Empire 
remained,  the  conditions  of  a  new  and  real  one  were 
obscured  to  common  vision.  With  the  destruction  of 
the  venerable  shape,  it  became  evident  that  what 
Germany  wanted  was  a  powerful  leader  of  its  own,  who 
would  force  the  smaller  states  to  sink  their  rivalries  in 
submission  to  the  whole  as  represented  by  its  greatest 
constituent. 

Progress  of  the  German  States. — In  different 
states  the  quickening  movement  varied  in  character 
and  persistence.  Bavaria,  for  example,  presented  the 
most  advanced  form  of  innovation.  Wiirtemberg's 
king,  on  the  other  hand,  imposed  his  reforms  in  such 
an  arbitrary  manner  that,  notwithstanding  his  ability 
and  the  need  of  change  throughout  his  new  kingdom, 
his  subjects  were  at  the  time  conscious  only  of  his 
tyranny  and  the  burdens  of  French  suzerainty.  The 
subjects  of  Jerome  Bonaparte,  king  of  Westphalia, 
suffered  more  than  ordinary  extortion  from  Napoleon, 
and  also  experienced  all  the  evils  which  could  be  pro- 
duced by  the  rule  and  favourites  of  the  one  Bonaparte, 
who  was  too  vicious  and  careless  to  be  worthy  of  a 
crown.  In  Baden,  where  devotion  to  French  models 
was  Strongest,  Charles  Frederick  contrived  to  obtain 
for  the  people  an  unusual  proportion  of  benefit  In 
Saxony,  on  the  contrary,  the  instincts  of  the  king  and 
his*  well-to-do  burghers  forbade  any  change ;  and  in 
Mecklenburg,  the  stronghold  of  the  feudal  nobility, 
the  representatives  of  the  oldest  sovereign  house  in  the 
Western  world  were  powerless  to  take  advantage  of  the 
prevailing  current  of  events.  Where,  too,  the  country 
had  been  brought  directly  under  French  administration, 


134         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

as  in  Hanover  and  Kurhesse,  the  return  of  the  old 
rulers  was  accompanied  by  determined  efforts  to  efface 
the  work  of  the  usurpers;  yet  Prussia,  though  its  juris- 
prudence was  of  Frederick's  making,  found  reason  to 
retain  the  Code  Napoleon  in  its  Rhenish  Provinces. 
One  special  consequence  of  French  domination,  how- 
ever, seems  to  have  been  more  or  less  operative  through- 
out Germany.  The  ease  with  which  the  new  France 
trampled  under  foot  the  old  empire,  the  old  Austria, 
and  the  old  Prussia,  induced  everywhere  a  disposition 
to  regard  hopefully  any  changes  which  promised  to 
import  a  democratic  element  into  government.  The 
same  fact  called  upon  the  rulers  to  compete  with  the 
semblance  of  popular  institutions  which  the  French 
introduced  wherever  they  went.  Hardenberg,  Stein's 
successor,  and  in  some  ways  his  peer,  could  find  no 
more  plausible  excuse  for  rashly  pledging  the  Prussian 
crown  to  a  national  representation  than  the  expediency 
of  distancing  the  dangerous  Westphalian  neighbour  in 
the  estimation  of  public  opinion.*  Hence  the  solemn 
acknowledgment  of  Germany's  debt  to  France,  which 
many  of  its  sovereigns  made  when  they  bid  for  the 
support  of  their  subjects  in  the  War  of  Liberation  by 
promises  of  constitutional  government.  Hence  the 
famous  thirteenth  article  of  the  Bundesacie,  "In  alien 
Bundesstaaten  wird  eine  landesstandische  Verfassung 
Statt  finden." 

Regeneration  of  Prussia.     Edict  of  Emancipa- 
tion, 1807, — At  the  same  time  that  this  metamorphosfs  of 

♦  Influenced  by  the  same  idea,  as  we  learn  from  a  letter  of  Napoleon's 
to  Jerome,  quoted  by  Mr.  Fisher,  the  Emperor  insisted  that  a  liberal 
government  would  separate  Westphalia  from  Prussia  more  effectively  than 
the  Elbe,  or  fortresses,  or  French  protection.  **  What  people  would  wish 
to  revert  to  Prussian  despotism  after  once  tasting  the  benefits  of  a  wise 
and  liberal  government?"  But  the  Westphalians  seem  to  have  most 
appreciated  fighting  in  Napoleon's  campaigns. 


THE  QUICKENING   OF  GERMANY        135 

an  aggregate  of  states  was  preparing  the  groundwork  for 
a  united  Germany,  the  regeneration  of  a  single  monarchy- 
provided  for  the  future  erection  of  a  German  empire. 
It  was  after  the  Peace  of  Tilsit,  when  a  large  French 
army  was  quartered  on  what  was  left  of  its  territory, 
and  an  enormous  indemnity  was  being  levied  on  its 
people,  that  Prussia  shook  off  its  lethargy  and  entered 
the  path  of  reform,  which  was  to  lead  it  to  the  head- 
ship of  the  nation.  To  rescue  the  state  from  succumb- 
ing in  the  fierce  struggle  for  existence,  by  which  the 
Revolution  was  improving  the  type  of  all  surviving 
institutions,  the  Freiherr  vom  Stein  was  invested  with 
very  great  discretionary  powers.  Versed  in  the 
doctrines  of  Adam  Smith  and  the  lessons  of  English 
history,  Stein  and  his  colleagues  first  sought  to  improve 
the  social  and  economical  condition  of  Prussia  by  con- 
ferring on  its  inhabitants  a  just  measure  of  individual 
liberty.  A  commission  of  Hardenberg's  had  nearly 
completed  the  draft  of  an  Edict  of  Emancipation  when 
Stein  entered  office  ;  and  it  was  the  Freiherr's  merit  to 
have  suffered  not  a  week's  delay  before  making  it  law. 
Prior  to  its  publication,  villeinage,  based  originally  on 
the  manorial  system  of  conferring  on  the  squires 
judiciary  and  police  functions,  ranging  from  absolute 
servitude  to  a  more  usual  system  of  recognized  services 
and  dues  from  the  peasant  to  his  lord,  was  the  condition 
of  the  workers  of  the  soil  in  the  Prussian  monarchy.  On 
this  point  the  edict  decreed  that  from  Martinmas,  1810, 
every  remaining  form  of  villeinage  shall  cease,  and 
from  that  date  there  shall  be  none  but  freemen  in  the 
Prussian  dominions.  Formerly,  too,  the  land  had  been 
divided  into  portions  confined  to  the  nobles,  burghers, 
and  peasants  respectively ;  land  and  people  went  to- 
gether, both  being  carefully  distinguished  into  lots,  and 
kept  in  separate  categories.     The  edict  decreed  that 


136         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

every  inhabitant  is,  as  far  as  the  state  is  concerned, 
henceforth  free  to  acquire  and  own  landed  property  of 
every  kind  and  description  ;  that  every  noble,  without 
derogation  from  his  rank,  is  henceforth  free  to  exercise 
the  trades  and  callings  of  a  burgher,  while  the  burgher 
may  become  peasant,  the  peasant  burgher. 

Prussian  Municipal  Reform.  —  The  Edict  of 
Emancipation  was  no  more  than  was  necessary  to 
remove  the  worst  anachronisms  which  the  stiff  military 
regime  of  the  Prussian  monarchy  had  involved  and 
maintained.  More  truly  in  advance  was  Stein's  scheme 
for  introducing  a  limited  local  self-government  which 
should  culminate  in  a  kind  of  national  representation. 
Of  this  he  was  able  to  realize  only  that  part  which 
related  to  the  towns.  At  one  time  the  German  cities  had 
been  strongholds  of  burgher  independence  and  freedom, 
but  from  various  causes,  of  which  war  and  the  rise  of 
military  absolutism  were  chief,  this  healthy  feeling  had 
forsaken  all  the  centres  of  industry  except  a  few  free 
towns.  Bureaucratic  servitude,  with  all  its  concomitant 
apathy,  was  now  the  political  condition  of  most  citizens. 
In  the  late  war,  the  infantine  helplessness  of  the  Prussian 
towns  had  strikingly  been  exhibited  when  defeat  had 
smitten  with  paralysis  the  mechanical  officialism  on 
which  they  were  accustomed  to  rely.  By  Stein's  muni- 
cipal reform  the  citizens  were  entrusted  with  the  care  of 
their  schools,  public  works,  and  poor.  At  first  the 
torpid  towns  were  shy  of  their  new  responsibilities  ;  but 
when  the  War  of  Liberation  threw  the  burghers  on  their 
own  resources,  and  forcibly  introduced  them  to  the 
invigorating  experience  of  self-help,  a  great  awakening 
overtook  Prussian  civic  life.  A  wholesome  public 
feeling  was  aroused,  and  an  instructive  precedent  was 
supplied  to  other  German  states  for  reviving  in  the 
towns  the  freer  forms  of  the  past. 


THE   QUICKENING  OF  GERMANY        137 

Reform  of  the  Central  Administration  by  Stein. 
^On  the  other  hand,  Stein  was  equally  determined  to 
**give  to  the  administration  of  affairs  the  greatest 
possible  unity,  energy,  and  activity ;  to  cause  it  to 
converge  to  the  highest  point ;  and,  in  the  simplest  and 
most  convenient  manner,  to  place  at  its  disposal  all  the 
powers  of  the  nation  and  the  individual."  The  decrees 
which  were  to  effect  this  change  in  the  central  and 
provincial  administration  failed  to  embody  all  that  he 
contemplated.  Since  then  other  alterations  have  con- 
siderably modified  what  he  did  accomplish.  But  still  it 
is  his  work  which  fashioned  anew  the  most  excellent 
bureaucracy  which  ever  served  the  cause  of  monarchy. 

Hardenberg's  Legislation. — Although  Stein's  re- 
forms were  violently  opposed  by  the  aristocracy,  his 
successor  continued  to  carry  out  a  similar  policy.  Some 
of  Hardenberg's  measures  were  futile  and  ill-advised  ; 
some  were  defeated  by  popular  indifference,  the  hostility 
of  the  Junkerthum,  or  his  own  personal  foibles  ;  but 
many  were  reforms  of  permanent  value.  The  Jews 
were  emancipated,  and  the  guilds  were  abolished. 
Following  the  precedent  by  which,  soon  after  their 
liberation,  the  serfs  of  the  royal  domains  had  been 
transformed  into  free  proprietors,  an  edict  for  the  regula- 
tion of  the  relations  between  lords  of  the  manor  and 
their  peasants  was  issued.  The  Edict  of  Emancipation 
had  left  the  freeman  still  subject  to  all  obligations 
flowing  from  the  possession  of  land.  It  was  now 
enacted  that  all  tenants  of  hereditary  holdings  shall 
become  the  absolute  proprietors  of  their  holdings  after 
paying  to  the  landlord  an  indemnity  and  surrendering 
their  former  claims  on  him. 

Retrograde  Policy  of  Austria. — At  first  little  was 
known  of  the  step  which  Prussia  had  taken  towards 
fitting  itself  for  a  civilizing  rdle.     Nor,  when  peace  left 


138         HISTORY   OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

this  monarchy  almost  wholly  German,  abutting  in  one 
direction  on  aggressive  France  and  in  the  other  on  the 
Russian  empire,  did  men  understand  that  its  interests 
must  be  those  of  the  German  nation.  But  the  old 
suspicion  and  dislike  remained  as  rife  as  before.  The 
dynasties  were  not  less  jealous  of  their  sovereignty  now 
that  it  had  become  more  important.  The  presence  of 
Austria  encouraged  these  feelings.  Though  the  idea 
that  the  nucleus  of  a  united  Germany  could  ever  be 
found  in  the  House  of  Hapsburg  existed  only  in  the 
fancy  of  a  few  romanticists,  yet  its  rivalry  deprived 
Prussia  of  the  moral  weight  which  a  claim  to  national 
leadership  required.  More  adversely,  the  whole  tenor 
of  Austrian  statesmanship  was  to  maintain  the  principle 
of  legitimacy  against  the  pretensions  of  nationality, 
whether  raised  by  discontented  peoples  or  espoused  by 
ambitious  monarchies.  When  Naples  was  transferred 
to  the  Bourbons,  Ferdinand  was  bound  by  a  secret 
treaty  to  tolerate  no  constitution  or  innovation  repug- 
nant to  the  old  monarchical  system  or  the  principles  of 
Austrian  administration  in  Lombardy.  The  reaction 
against  the  abortive  reforms  of  Joseph  and  the  pitiful 
conservatism  of  Francis  himself  had  effectually  resisted 
everything  pertaining  to  the  Revolution  except  its 
armies.  Even  the  enthusiasm  of  the  War  of  Liberation 
had  failed  to  elicit  any  response  from  the  state  whose 
monarch  hoped  to  see  his  grandchild,  the  titular  King 
of  Rome,  step  into  the  inheritance  of  the  Napoleonic 
Empire.  Agitators  against  the  French  after  the  retreat 
from  Moscow  were  arrested  and  banished  by  the 
Austrian  government.  Austria's  standard  of  culture 
withheld  its  German  subjects  from  spiritual  communion 
with  the  rest  of  their  race.  Its  press  regulations  were 
so  constricting  that  the  educated  people  of  Vienna  had 
to  thank  the  French  occupation  in  1809  for  much  access 


THE   QUICKENING  OF  ITALY  139 

to  the  German  national  literature.  Naturally  disposed  to 
pleasure  and  ease,  dispirited  by  the  burdens  of  war  and 
a  terrible  financial  catastrophe,  the  Germans  of  Austria 
patiently  accepted  the  intellectual  pittance  afforded  by 
police,  priests,  and  smugglers.  And  all  the  time  their 
government  studied  to  keep  peoples  submissive  to  their 
princes,  and  princes  unmoved  by  national  aspirations 

Political  Attitude  of  the  German  People. — Great, 
then,  as  was  Germany's  gain  from  this  period,  it  did  not 
amount  to  more  than  a  groundwork  for  subsequent 
development.  For  the  present,  no  spontaneous  popular 
force  existed  to  remedy  the  faults  of  the  political  settle- 
ment. In  some  quarters  the  remembrance  of  the  War 
of  Liberation  and  the  national  and  constitutional  hopes 
born  of  that  time  lingered  to  suggest  a  more  worthy 
fate  for  the  German  race.  But  the  burgher  population, 
the  classes  who  in  England  and  France  were  about  to 
assert  supremacy,  were  still  lacking  in  the  first  qualities 
of  effective  citizens.  Their  sufferings  from  war,  their 
difficulties  when  commerce  resumed  its  proper  channels, 
served  to  increase  their  lassitude.  Their  condition  was 
in  many  most  important  respects  greatly  improved, 
but  the  great  reward  of  their  travail  was  to  be  reaped 
by  another  generation. 

Italy's  Need  of  Autonomy. — Like  Germany,  Italy 
dates  the  quickening  of  its  national  life  from  the 
dominion  of  Napoleon,  and,  like  Germany,  its  period 
of  fruition  was  long  deferred.  But  while  in  these  and 
other  respects  the  development  of  the  two  nations 
presents  many  points  of  resemblance,  the  essential  con- 
ditions of  the  two  processes  varied  in  one  important 
particular.  Germany's  protracted  disintegration  was 
principally  due  to  the  stubbornness  of  constituent 
elements ;  Italy's  mainly  to  foreign  servitude,  and  only 
secondarily  to  want  of  solidarity  of  feeling.     At  Vienna, 


140         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

German  powers  virtually  controlled  German  affairs ; 
but  Italy  was  surrendered  to  its  old  rulers  by  a  congress 
of  strangers,  before  which,  as  a  nation,  it  was  entirely 
unrepresented.*  The  Italians  had  much  to  learn  before 
they  could  be  masters  of  themselves  ;  they  had  more  to 
do  before  they  could  become  their  own  rulers.  Whereas 
Germany's  prime  need  was  unity,  Italy's  was  autonomy  ; 
and  this  characteristic  difference  broadly  distinguished 
the  course  of  their  development. 

Influence  of  Napoleon's  Rule  on  Italy. — When 
the  Revolution  was  still  distant,  Italian  literature 
began  to  throw  off  the  craven  spirit  of  dependence 
which  centuries  of  degradation  had  induced  in  every 
department  of  life.  In  the  more  serious  branches 
of  thought  arose  writers  of  European  fame ;  and  in 
the  lighter  functions  of  literature,  talent  protested 
in  behalf  of  a  more  manly  and  moral  conception  of 
personal  and  social  life.  Parini  initiated  in  style  a 
return  to  reality,  and  chastened  with  delicate  irony  the 
prevailing  vices  and  follies  of  the  upper  classes. 
Goldoni  redeemed  comedy  from  the  slavery  of  imita- 
tion and  the  reproach  of  absurdity  with  plays  which 
owed  their  attractiveness  as  much  to  their  conformity 
with  the  national  character  and  manners  as  to  the 
invention,  gaiety,  and  humour  of  their  author.  Then 
came  the  fervid  patriotism  and  passion  for  independence 
of  Alfieri  and  Ugo  Foscolo.  Hence,  when  Bonaparte 
established  the  Cispadane  Republic,  there  were  among 
the    many,   who    could    unintelligently    ejaculate    the 

*  Admirers  of  the  Italian  struggle  for  independence  will  recall  that 
three  hundred  years  earlier  Machiavelli  had  written,  "Volendo  cono- 
scere  la  virtu  di  uno  spirito  italiano,  era  necessario  che  I'ltalia  si  riducesse 
nel  termine  ch'  ell'  e  di  presente,  e  che  la  fusse  piu  schiava  che  gli  Ebrei, 
piu  serva  che  i  Persi,  piii  dispersa  che  gli  Ateniesi,  senza  capo,  senz' 
ordine,  battuta,  spogliata,  lacera,  corsa,  ed  avesse  sopportato  di  ogni 
sorta  rovine. " 


s, 


THE  QUICKENING  OF  ITALY  141 

revolutionary  phrases,  a  few  eager  patriots  to  whom 
the  words  made  the  dream  of  Italian  independence  a 
vivid  idea.  And  when  the  great  conqueror  extended 
his  rule  over  the  whole  peninsula,  his  kinship,  and  the 
extermination  of  the  strange  rulers,  suggested  the 
thought  of  Italian  independence  and  unity  in  quarters 
where  the  ideal  possesses  little  power.  Under  the 
banners  of  the  Emperor  conscripts  from  every  part  of 
Italy  fought  side  by  side,  and  together  won  renown 
against  the  nations  of  Europe.  Under  his  protection 
the  citizens  enjoyed  the  same  code  of  law,  the  same 
system  of  administration,  taxation,  and  instruction. 
While  the  nation  gained  confidence  in  itself,  it  buried 
not  a  few  of  the  jealousies  bequeathed  to  it  by  the 
Middle  Ages.  While  it  learnt  to  prize  civic  equality,  it 
rejoiced  in  the  fancy  of  liberty.  The  weight  of  the 
French  yoke  lost  much  of  its  power  to  gall  when  feudal 
privileges  availed  no  more  and  burdens  were  equally 
distributed.  It  is  true  that  of  thirty  thousand  Italians 
who  fought  in  Spain  hardly  nine  thousand  returned, 
and  that  of  the  twenty-seven  thousand  who  entered 
Russia,  scarcely  one  thousand  reached  home.  But  the 
people  were  accustomed  to  hardships,  and  though  they 
dwelt  upon  them  more  than  did  spirited  and  ambitious 
members  of  the  upper  classes,  their  discontent  did  not 
invalidate  the  hopes  which  the  leaders  of  public  opinion 
discovered  in  the  Napoleonic  despotism.* 

References  to  Italian  Independence. — Before- 
these  young  national  aspirations  were  outlawed  by 
the  Restoration,  fortune  enabled  them  to  be  recorded 
by  the  combined   testimony  of  friend   and  foe.     The 

*  Writing  in  1825,  Colletta  said,  "Se  la  intoUeranza  della  servitu  h  un 
supplicio  presente,  ma  un  bene  certo  e  future  de'  popoli,  dessa  viene  agl' 
Italiani  dal  dominio  di  Buonaparte,  arbitrario,  violento,  ma  pieno  di  efifetti 
e  di  speranze." 


142         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

ill-fated  venture  of  Murat  on  the  return  of  Napoleon 
from  Elba  is  numbered  by  an  historian  of  Italian 
independence  as  the  first  effort  in  its  behalf.  When 
the  King  of  Naples  issued  his  proclamation  to  the 
Italian  nation,  "  from  the  Alps  to  the  Straits  of  Scylla 
echoed  one  cry  alone — Indipendenza  d'ltalia — this  cry, 
which  later,  in  1848-49  and  in  1859-60,  moved  millions 
of  Italians,  drew  thousands  and  thousands  around  the 
banner  on  which  was  written — Gloria,  Dovere,  Amor  di 
patria."  Nor  could  his  enemy  afford  to  disregard  his 
war-cry.  The  Emperor  of  Austria  had  declared  that 
the  Lombards  must  forget  that  they  were  Italians,  and 
that  his  Italian  provinces  required  to  be  united  only  by 
the  bond  of  obedience  to  their  emperor.  Metternich 
openly  plotted  to  quench  the  spirit  of  Italian  liberty 
and  union  by  disorganizing  the  Italian  army  and 
repressing  the  name  and  institutions  of  the  kingdom  of 
Italy.  But  when  the  Austrian  general,  Bellegarde,  was 
threatened  by  Murat  and  his  inflammatory  promises,  a 
proclamation  was  issued  to  the  Lombards,  avowing  that 
"  the  Emperor,  firm  in  his  partiality  to  his  Italian  states, 
has  determined  upon  the  erection  of  a  Lombardo- 
Venetian  kingdom,  as  a  peculiar  crown  land,  whereby 
his  Italian  subjects  will  preserve  their  nationality,  which 
they  with  reason  esteem  so  highly ; "  and  an  imperial 
patent  announced  that  a  viceroy  would  represent  the 
Emperor  with  a  regular  constitution.  This  blast  and 
counterblast,  though  the  one  was  only  instrumental  in 
uniting  an  inconsiderable  auxiliary  force  to  the  Nea- 
politan army,  and  causing  some  disturbance  in  Romagna, 
and  the  other  was  uttered  only  to  be  forgotten  for 
thirty-two  years,  betrayed  the  commencement  of  a  new 
epoch  in  Italian  history,  the  course  of  which  no  decisions 
of  the  powers  could  arrest. 

The    Restoration    in    Italy.  —  Nevertheless,    the 


THE   QUICKENING   OF  ITALY  143 

restored  governments  insisted  on  presuming  otherwise. 
Tuscany  was  the  only  place  of  importance  where  the 
reaction  did  not  bring  great  misfortunes.  This  was 
chiefly  because  the  Grand-Duke  Leopold  had  been  there 
before  the  French,  and  had  left  few  abuses  to  be  attacked 
or  restored.  But  in  Rome,  while  the  wise  Consalvi 
watched  the  interests  of  the  Papacy  at  Vienna,  the 
returned  ecclesiastics,  under  the  leadership  of  Rivarola 
and  Pacca,  wreaked  vengeance  on  all  French  innovations. 
The  whole  antiquated  system  of  justice,  police,  and  trade 
was  revived ;  the  Inquisition  and  the  Jesuits  were  again 
called  into  existence ;  the  very  lighting  of  the  streets 
was  discontinued ;  all  political  writings  were  placed 
under  ban,  and  hundreds  of  impeachments  for  heresy 
were  instituted;  the  sales  of  Church  property  were 
declared  void  without  compensation,  and  eighteen 
hundred  monasteries,  and  six  hundred  nunneries,  which 
Napoleon  had  abolished,  were  re-established.  In  the 
legations  a  like  policy  was  pursued.  The  benevolence 
of  Piedmont's  king  did  not  save  this  state  from  an 
equally  violent  reaction.  All  that  had  happened  since 
1798  was  cancelled ;  the  chaotic  laws  of  1770  were 
proclaimed,  and  all  judicial  decisions  made  during  the 
sixteen  years  of  French  administration  were  declared 
inoperative ;  all  offices  were  commanded  to  be  filled  up 
according  to  the  state  calendar  of  1798 ;  Napoleon's 
bridge  over  the  Po  narrowly  escaped  destruction,  even 
the  plants  placed  by  the  French  in  the  botanical  gardens 
were  uprooted ;  only  Napoleon's  officers  could  not  at 
first  be  dispensed  with.  Modena  experienced  much 
the  same  treatment  as  Piedmont.  Napoleon's  Austrian 
consort,  however,  remained  true  to  the  French  order  in 
Parma,  and  won  the  regard  of  her  subjects.  And  in 
Naples  the  reaction  was  much  less  extreme  than 
in  Rome  and  Piedmont     Austria,  while  it  approved 


144         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

and  instigated  this  reactionary  violence,  and  counte- 
nanced only  by  treacherous  proclamations  the  aspirations 
of  its  Lombardo- Venetian  subjects,  buried  the  feelings 
of  good  fellowship,  which  formerly  subsisted  between 
the  Hapsburgs  and  their  Italian  provinces,  in  a  hateful 
system  of  espionage  and  denationalization. 

The  Italian  Secret  Societies. — The  apprehensions 
of  Austria  were  not  unfounded.  The  Italian  restoration 
was,  in  truth,  reared  on  an  unstable  soil  From  this  time 
the  fabric  of  Italian  society  was  tunnelled  in  all  directions 
by  secret  societies,  chief  of  which  was  that  of  the  Car- 
bonari. It  is  not  unlikely  that  if  the  restoration  had 
been  conducted  in  a  judicious  manner,  little  more  would 
have  been  heard  of  the  sette ;  but  the  aggravating  cir- 
cumstances attending  that  event,  and  the  disbandment 
of  thousands  of  officers,  at  once  inflamed  their  revolution- 
ary temper,  and  greatly  promoted  their  wide  extension. 
Thanks  to  retrograde  infatuation,  conspiracy  was  to  con- 
tend with  despotism  to  hinder  the  attainment  of  the  fair 
ideal  which  the  empire's  discipline  had  vouchsafed  to 
Italian  patriotism. 

The  Revolution  in  Spain.  Joseph's  rule. — While  it 
was  Napoleon's  function  to  promote  union  among  the 
members  of  Germany  and  Italy,  in  Spain  his  chief 
unwitting  service  was  to  split  dull  unity  into  active 
discord.  When  he  assumed  the  right  to  change  the 
sovereign  dynasty,  he  proposed  to  give  the  country  a  new 
constitution.  For  this  purpose,  immediately  after  the 
abdication  of  the  Bourbon  family,  he  convoked  a  body  of 
Spanish  notables.  This  assembly  was  of  its  kind  most 
imperfect  Owing  to  the  instantaneous  insurrection  of 
the  people,  elections  to  it  were  practicable  only  in  districts 
already  occupied  by  French  troops  ;  and  the  greater 
number  of  its  members,  therefore,  were  persons  of  degree 
who  happened  to  be  within  reach.     To  such  spurious 


THE   QUICKENING   OF   SPAIN  145 

representation  of  the  Spanish  people  Napoleon  tendered 
his  kingdom  and  constitution.  From  this  fortuitous  knot 
of  Spaniards,  gathered  beyond  the  reach  of  the  rebellion  of 
their  countrymen,  and  filled  with  favourable  expectations 
by  the  well-spoken  Joseph  and  the  promised  reforms  of 
French  rule,  he  secured  a  fictitious  assent  to  both  pro- 
posals. But  by  the  nation  itself  his  scheme  was  viewed 
with  abhorrence.  To  its  pride  a  foreign  yoke  was 
intolerable  ;  to  its  bigotry  ameliorations  at  the  hands 
of  the  irreligious  French  were  maddening  scourges. 
Though  eventually  the  good  sense  of  Joseph  Bonaparte 
sometimes  succeeded  in  moderating  repugnance  to  his 
rule,  yet  "  if  he  had  been  an  angel  from  heaven  the  result 
would  have  been  the  same."  The  nation,  as  a  whole, 
could  in  no  measure  be  conciliated  by  wholesome  reform 
or  improved  administration. 

Assembly  of  the  Spanish  Cortes,  1810. — The 
Spaniards,  on  their  side,  endeavoured  to  invest  their 
efforts  with  some  coherence  by  forming  a  central  Junta 
out  of  representatives  from  the  provincial  Juntas,  which 
had  spontaneously  arisen  on  the  outbreak  of  the  insur- 
rection. This  irregular  body  proved  so  incapable  that 
in  1809  it  had  to  promise  to  convoke  by  the  following 
year  the  Cortes,  or  national  parliament.  But  when  the 
time  came  for  the  election  of  the  Cortes,  the  advance  of 
the  French  had  driven  the  central  government  into 
Cadiz.  Now,  of  all  Spanish  towns  Cadiz  enjoyed,  by 
reason  of  its  commercial  intercourse,  greatest  immunity 
from  bigotry  and  prejudice.  This  city  shared,  in  truth, 
the  revolutionary  tendencies  which  existed  in  Portugal 
at  this  time,  though  temporarily  repressed  by  the  efforts 
of  war  and  the  presence  of  the  English.  Here  now 
congregated  all  the  candidates  for  political  power  ;  here 
assembled  thousands  of  fugitives  from  the  mainland 
laden  with  questions  which  the  Junta's  announcement  of 


146         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

the  Cortes  had  raised.  Long  before  the  invasion,  as  long 
back,  indeed,  as  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
when  Father  Feyjo6  soberly  introduced  Spaniards  to  the 
scientific  knowledge  of  Europe,  a  movement  in  behalf  of 
intellectual  culture  had  been  initiated ;  and  in  the  late 
reign  a  few  enlightened  men  had  encountered  the 
enormities  of  the  government  by  temperate  demands. 
But  the  perversity  of  the  people  and  the  tyranny  of 
Godoy  had  crushed  their  occasional  remonstrances.  In 
the  central  Junta  this  party  had  found  representation, 
and  its  views  had  been  upheld  judiciously  by  Jovellanos, 
the  wisest  and  most  trusted  of  the  Liberal  band.  But 
the  ascendency  which  the  talents  and  virtues  of  this 
leader  might  have  given  him  over  the  assembly  had  been 
greatly  diminished  by  physical  ailments  contracted 
during  a  cruel  imprisonment  in  the  previous  reign.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  remembrance  of  persecution,  indig- 
nation at  the  official  corruption  and  incapacity,  which  in 
these  days  of  trial  everywhere  stultified  the  patriotism  of 
the  people,  excited  among  the  Liberals  feelings  which 
demanded  firmer  control  than  the  enfeebled  Jovellanos 
could  exert. 

Character  of  the  Cortes.— Thus  it  came  about  that  a 
very  revolutionary  Cortes  was  elected  principally  from 
the  tumultuous  throng  within  Cadiz  itself,  for  many  pro- 
vinces, which  were  prevented  from  holding  elections  by 
the  presence  of  the  French,  were  represented  by  members 
chosen  by  those  of  their  inhabitants  who  had  fled  with- 
in the  walls  of  the  town.  Supported  by  hopeful  antici- 
pations of  the  people  (who  had  come  to  conceive  an  in- 
distinct idea  that  their  misfortunes  were  due  to  the 
degradation  of  the  Cortes  in  the  last  three  hundred 
years),  uncontrolled  by  any  traditional  rules  or  authori- 
tative instructions,  the  national  parliament  undertook 
with  small  misgiving  the  task  of  saving  Spain  from 


THE  QUICKENING  OF  SPAIN  147 

immediate  bondage  and  future  misgovernment.  In  zeal 
and  industry,  in  unsuspected  talent,  in  naive  inex- 
perience, in  distrust  of  Bourbon  rule,  in  attachment  to 
abstract  principles,  the  new  Cortes  resembled  the 
National  Assembly  of  France  without  profiting  by  its 
example. 

Spanish  Constitution  of  1812. — Like  its  French  pro- 
totype, the  Cortes  exhibited  all  its  many  failings  when  it 
came  to  form  a  constitution  for  Spain.  After  much  violent 
controversy,  the  Liberal  party  overpowered  the  Clerical 
and  Conservative  opposition ;  and  the  Cortes  put  forth 
the  famous  constitution  of  18 12,  which,  as  Wellington  said 
in  a  letter  to  Bathurst,  it  had  constructed  very  much 
on  the  principle  that  an  artist  paints  a  picture,  viz.  to  be 
looked  at.  In  this  fabrication  the  two  prevailing  ideas 
of  the  Spanish  reformers  appeared.  In  order  to  render 
the  royal  power  harmless,  the  monarch  was  surrounded 
by  checks  and  limitations  ;  in  order  to  prevent  it  from 
corrupting  members,  ministers  were  prohibited  from 
sitting  in  the  house,  and  a  general  election  every  two 
years  was  ordained,  with  the  provision  that  old  members 
were  disqualified  from  serving  again.  To  replace  the 
debased  monarchy,  a  phantom  crown,  a  totally  inex- 
perienced parliament,  and  a  secluded  executive  were 
devised. 

Precarious  Position  of  the  Cortes. — Assuring  as 
seemed  this  advantage  over  the  monarchy  within  the 
walls  of  Cadiz,  the  Cortes  was  far  from  possessing  a  sound 
basis  of  authority  over  the  country.  It  had  failed  to 
arrest  disaster  or  assuage  woe,  and  novelty  no  longer  gave 
it  the  support  of  hope.  In  the  town  its  policy  and  mis- 
fortunes had  created  many  enemies,  and  the  strength  of 
the  Conservatives  began  to  appear  in  the  conduct  of  the 
government.  When  the  advance  of  Wellington  opened 
the  way  for  it  to  make  a  reality  of  its  paper  constitution, 


148         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

the  nation  was  found  to  be  in  no  mood  to  welcome 
political  experiments.  Compared  with  the  late  troubles, 
the  last  reign  seemed  pleasant  enough. 

Return  of  Ferdinand  VII.,  1813. — Nevertheless, 
by  the  folly  of  their  opponents  and  their  own  ability, 
the  Liberals  again  got  the  upper  hand  in  the  new  Cortes, 
which  was  duly  elected  in  18 13.  When  the  former 
Prince  of  Asturias,  now  Ferdinand  VII.,  was  released 
from  his  captivity  at  Valengay,  the  Cortes  prescribed 
the  route  of  his  return  to  Madrid,  and  ordered  his 
movements  to  be  controlled  till  he  had  taken  the  oath 
appointed  by  the  new  constitution.  But  while  the 
Cortes  had  arranged  that  Ferdinand  should  proceed  by 
Reus  to  Valencia,  he  turned  aside  at  the  petition  of 
Palafox  to  visit  Saragossa.  Joyous  as  his  reception 
had  been  to  this  point,  the  king  here  experienced  for 
the  first  time  the  full  force  of  that  enthusiastic  loyalty 
with  which  the  Spanish  people  were  still  filled.  Those 
who  surrounded  him,  and  wished  to  restore  the  old 
Spain,  now  conceived  the  design  of  annulling  the  con- 
stitution. At  Daroca,  such  a  course  was  openly  pro- 
posed to  him.  The  irresolute  Ferdinand  hesitated  to 
take  such  a  step  ;  but  his  reception  at  Valencia  increased 
his  confidence  to  such  a  degree  that  he  ventured  to 
show,  by  his  behaviour  to  a  deputation  from  the  Cortes, 
unmistakable  repugnance  to  the  new  order.  Hereupon 
the  Conservatives  renewed  their  exertions,  and  the  power 
of  the  Liberals  rapidly  declined.  In  Madrid,  now  the 
seat  of  the  Cortes,  the  Liberal  party  was  overwhelmed 
with  popular  execration.  In  the  rest  of  the  towns  the 
constitution  was  denounced  as  the  work  of  traitors  and 
heathens.  From  the  legislative  assembly  itself  the 
opposition  sent  to  the  king  a  memorial  stigmatizing 
with  all  the  distortion  of  falsehood  the  deeds  of  the 
Cortes  as  factious  treason.     Still  Ferdinand  hesitated 


THE   QUICKENING   OF   SPAIN  149 

to  take  the  decisive  steps  which  his  advisers  recom- 
mended. But  at  last  his  craven  nature  gathered  courage 
for  a  cotip  d'etat.  On  the  night  of  May  lo,  some  thirty 
of  the  foremost  Liberals  in  Madrid  were  thrown  into 
prison,  and  the  Cortes  was  ordered  to  be  closed.  At 
the  same  time  a  manifesto  promised  a  mild,  just,  and 
liberal  government,  but  annulled  the  work  of  the 
Cortes,  and  threatened  with  death  all  who  attempted 
to  support  it.  The  mob  quickly  took  the  hint,  and  the 
royal  outrage  was  speedily  sanctioned  by  popular 
excesses. 

Inevitableness  of  Revolution  in  Spain. — But 
though  the  people  conspired  with  their  prince  to  effect 
a  restoration,  it  was  no  more  possible  for  Spain  than 
it  was  for  Germany  or  Italy  to  bring  back  the  old  order. 
Of  all  European  countries  it  could  least  plead  exemption 
from  reform.  Having  been  touched  by  the  leaven  of 
the  revolution,  neither  passionate  loyalty  nor  arrogant 
prejudice  could  arrest  the  progress  of  social  ferment. 
Spain  might  defer,  but  it  could  not  escape,  revolution  ; 
and  its  refusal  to  accept  the  ordeal  during  the  age  of 
wars  entailed  a  bitter  experience  of  civil  strife  and 
foreign  intervention  in  the  era  of  peace. 


CHAPTER  VI 

MOVEMENTS  IN  RUSSIA,  SCANDINAVIA,  AND 
THE  OTTOMAN  EMPIRE 

"  Hereditary  bondsmen  !     Know  ye  not 
Who  would  be  free  themselves  must  strike  the  blow? 
By  their  right  arms  the  conquest  must  be  wrought  ? 
Will  Gaul  or  Muscovite  redress  ye  ?    No  ! 
True,  they  may  lay  your  proud  despoilers  low, 
But  not  for  you  will  freedom's  altars  flame." 

Byron. 

Character  of  Alexander  I. — From  more  than  one  point 
of  view  the  reign  of  Alexander  I.  was  an  important 
period  *in  the  history  of  Russia.  The  wars  and  policy 
of  N^fioleon  enabled  him  to  play  in  the  affairs  of  the 
Western  world  a  far  more  imposing  part  than  the  most 
sanguine  of  his  predecessors  had  contemplated ;  peace 
left  him  with  a  large  share  of  his  enemy's  dictatorial 
power,  and  the  Restoration  brought  his  territories  into 
closest  connection  with  Central  Europe.  These  con- 
sequences were  in  a  large  measure  due  to  external 
circumstances — to  the  situation,  extent,  and  climate  of 
the  country  ;  to  the  character  of  its  inhabitants,  and  the 
necessities  of  neighbouring  states.  But  it  was  through 
Alexander's  personal  nature  that  the  civilizing  tendencies 
of  this  fruitful  age  penetrated  into  the  land.  Naturally 
susceptible  to  the  calls  of  humanity,  he  had  been  edu- 
cated according  to  the  commands  of  his  grandmother, 
Catherine  II.,  by  a  number  of  preceptors,  of  whom  the 
most   influential  was   the   liberal  Laharpe,  a   pupil   of 

150 


MOVEMENTS  IN   RUSSIA  151 

Basedow,  the  pedagogic  reformer.  Agreeably  to  the 
tenor  of  Rousseau's  doctrines,  his  imaginative  disposition 
had  been  disciplined  by  no  course  of  rigorous  applica- 
tion. Hence  he  came  to  the  throne  filled  with  generous 
desires  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of  his  people.  Hence 
his  proneness  to  rest  content  with  imagining  an  end 
achieved  rather  than  to  exert  himself  over  the  necessary 
means.  In  his  youth,  moreover,  want  of  information 
and  experience  prevented  him  from  possessing  any  con- 
ception of  the  difficulties  lying  between  him  and  his 
objects.  Consequently,  his  attempted  reforms,  mainly 
falling  as  they  did  within  his  less  mature  years,  resulted 
almost  uniformly  in  failure  ;  and  his  memory  is  as  equally 
chequered  by  the  evil  he  caused  as  by  the  good  he 
pursued.  Nevertheless,  his  career  imparted  into  Russian 
despotism  a  new  element.  He  introduced  into  it  the 
spirit  of  the  philanthropical  movement,  and  gave  to  his 
country  as  much  of  the  revolution  as  the  dreary,  back- 
ward land  could  receive. 

Alexander's  Efforts  to  reduce  Serfage. — Gradually 
ridding  himself  of  the  circle  which  had  murdered  his 
father,  the  young  Tsar  gathered  about  him  the  coterie 
of  congenial  youths  with  whom  he  had  associated  as  a 
prince.  With  them  he  discussed  the  reform  of  his 
empire  according  to  the  dictates  of  human itarianism. 
Though  taking  little  account  of  the  economical  aspect 
of  serfage  and  agrarian  restrictions,  Alexander  earnestly 
desired  the  liberation  of  the  people  and  their  lands  from 
all  oppressive  conditions.  In  his  eyes,  such  institutions 
were  incompatible  with  happy  and  noble  manhood, 
and  he  felt  that  their  abolition  was  indispensable  for  a 
regeneration  of  Russian  society.  One  of  his  first  acts, 
therefore,  was  to  grant  the  merchant  class  the  power  of 
acquiring  land  without  serfs,  and  to  the  peasants  on  the 
Crown  lands  a  similar  privilege.  He  also  prohibited 
alienation  of  the  royal  domains  ;  for  it  was  held,  rightly 


152         HISTORY   OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

or  wrongly,  that  the  denizens  of  Crown  lands  were 
peasants  and  not  serfs.  A  million  roubles  a  year  were 
also  set  aside  for  the  purchase  of  land  by  the  Crown, 
and  the  conversion  of  the  accompanying  serfs  into 
demesne  peasants.  In  February,  1803,  the  advertise- 
ment of  single  serfs  without  land  for  sale  in  the  news- 
papers was  prohibited  ;  and  later,  such  sales  themselves 
were  interdicted.  The  example  of  the  court  naturally 
secured  some  imitation  from  nobles,  who  were  either 
anxious  for  the  welfare  of  the  people  or  desirous  of 
attracting  favour.  Thus  voluntary  contracts  of  libera- 
tion between  owners  and  serfs  came  to  be  legalized, 
though  unfortunately  with  little  ulterior  result. 

Alexander's  Early  Reforms. — Next  to  attract 
Alexander's  concern  was  education.  Early  in  his  reign 
an  elaborate  scheme  of  primary  and  higher  instruction 
was  drawn  up  and  set  in  motion.  Much  attention  was 
also  paid  to  the  development  of  trade  and  industry. 
An  imperial  ordinance  threw  open  the  first  guild  of  the 
mercantile  class  to  the  nobles  without  prejudice  to  their 
privileges.  At  the  same  time  an  attempt  was  made  to 
improve  the  efficiency  of  the  central  administration  by 
increasing  the  powers  of  the  senate,  and  by  superseding 
the  colleges  of  Peter  the  Great  with  ministries  of 
Western  pattern.  And  a  commission  was  appointed  to 
bring  order  into  the  chaos  of  laws,  which  principally 
consisted  of  seventy  thousand  ukazes  of  equal  authority 
issued  by  the  Tsars  since  the  time  of  Alexey  Michailo- 
witsch. 

Alexander's  Disappointments. — But  at  the  end  of 
his  first  reforming  period,  which  extended  to  the  Peace 
of  Tilsit,  Alexander  found  that  his  intention  to  recon- 
stitute Russian  society  was  far  from  being  realized.  As 
he  learned  more  exactly  the  state  of  the  nation,  he  grew 
more   desponding  of  success.      His    aspiration   to  be 


MOVEMENTS   IN  RUSSIA  153 

emperor  of  a  free  people  was  foiled  by  dogged  resist- 
ance from  the  nobles.  Those  innovations  which  he 
ventured  to  make  were  constantly  thwarted  by  evasion 
and  incapable  administration.  For  example,  an  auction 
mart  for  serfs  continued  to  exist  close  to  the  imperial 
palace.  Notwithstanding  active  co-operation  on  the 
part  of  some  of  the  clergy  and  nobility,  the  educational 
project  was  wrecked  by  want  of  qualified  teachers  and 
the  impenetrable  stupidity  of  the  popular  mind.  The 
endeavour  to  improve  the  administration  miscarried  on 
account  of  imperfect  demarcation  of  its  different  depart- 
ments, want  of  able  servants,  and  the  Tsar's  own 
autocratic  foibles.  Codification  of  the  law  was  found 
to  be  so  far  beyond  the  capacity  of  Russian  jurists  that 
the  charge  of  the  work  was  given  to  a  Livonian  named 
Rosenkampff,  who  was  equally  ignorant  of  the  Russian 
language  and  Russian  law.  Hence  mistrust  soon  caused 
Alexander  to  withhold  confidence  from  the  incapable 
counsellors  of  his  youth.  The  corruption  and  shame- 
lessness  of  his  officials  led  him  to  doubt  the  possibility 
of  honest  service.  In  bitter  reality  he  compassed  the 
dismal  circle  in  which  great  questions  move  in  Russia. 
In  bitter  truth  he  discovered  that,  for  a  great  political 
change,  all  classes  of  the  people  were  neither  intellectu- 
ally, morally,  nor  politically  prepared,  and  that  such 
preparation  can  never  be  brought  about  without  some 
great  administrative  revolution. 

Speranski's  Administrative  Reform. — Thus,  when 
Alexander  allied  himself  with  Napoleon,  he  was  quite 
ready  to  dismiss  his  advisers,  who  were  in  favour  of 
English  models  and  an  English  alliance,  and  to  seek 
for  new  help  which  should  be  at  once  more  practical 
and  more  congruous  with  his  changed  foreign  policy. 
Such  help  he  found  in  Speranski — the  Russian  Turgot, 
as  Stern  calls  him — a  man  of  great  energy  and  mental 


154         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

power,  who  had  acquired  extensive  practical  experience 
while  raising  himself  from  a  very  humble  station.  To 
this  man  Alexander  transferred  his  entire  confidence. 
With  him  alone  he  debated  the  reform  of  his  empire, 
and  from  him  alone  he  sought  means  for  carrying  it 
out.  Speranski,  who  was  not  unacquainted  with  the 
doctrines  of  Adam  Smith,  and  was  helped  by  two  others 
holding  similar  views,  was  convinced  that  only  straight- 
forward economy  and  taxation  could  redeem  the 
calamitously  depreciated  paper  currency,  and  that  free 
trade  alone  could  improve  the  resources  of  the  people. 
Though  no  trained  financier,  Speranski  might  have 
succeeded  by  force  of  his  natural  abilities  in  placing  the 
Russian  exchequer  on  a  firm  basis  if  he  had  continued 
in  power  for  a  few  years.  But  it  is  very  doubtful 
whether  his  want  of  juristic  training  would  ever  have 
allowed  him  to  give  a  thoroughly  serviceable  code  of 
laws  to  the  Russian  people.  Yet  he  rigorously  applied 
himself  to  this  task.  Rosenkampff's  commission  was 
broken  up  into  sections,  and  Speranski  set  to  work  to 
evolve  from  the  results  of  their  labours  a  law-book 
founded  on  general  principles.  Like  every  clever  lay- 
man of  liberal  tendencies  in  those  days,  he  was  full  of 
admiration  for  the  Code  Napoleon,  and  he  naturally 
sought  advice  by  corresponding  with  French  lawyers. 
Consequently,  when  the  first  part  of  his  work  was  laid 
before  the  government,  it  was  found  to  be  very  remotely 
related  to  Russian  authoritative  sources,  and  to  possess 
a  strong  resemblance  to  the  French  code.  That  Russia 
was  not  sufficiently  advanced  for  such  a  scheme  of 
legislation  can  hardly  be  doubted ;  yet  even  an  un- 
suitable code  seemed  preferable  to  the  chaotic  juris- 
prudence which  opened  the  way  to  boundless  bribery 
of  judges,  and  actually  allowed  an  impudent  pleader  to 
stultify  a  supreme  court  by  citing  imaginary  ukazes. 


MOVEMENTS  IN  RUSSIA  155 

But  these  considerations  obtained  little  weight  at  the 
time.  It  sufficed  to  accuse  the  author  of  an  intention  to 
palm  off  on  the  Russian  people  a  bad  translation  of 
Napoleon's  law-book. 

Fall  of  Speranski,  March,  1812. — From  the  first 
the  alliance  with  France  had  been  disliked  by  the 
country.  The  wars  against  the  French  in  behalf  of 
strangers  had  been  unpopular,  but  more  so  was  their 
inglorious  termination.  This  dissatisfaction  increased 
as  the  true  nature  of  the  connection  with  Napoleon 
became  more  apparent.  Moreover,  the  taste  for  French 
culture,  imparted  to  the  upper  classes  in  Catherine's 
reign,  had  given  place  to  solicitude  for  the  integrity  of 
the  Russian  national  character.  The  Revolution  had 
sent  thousands  of  French  exiles  to  Russia  to  seek  a 
livelihood  by  teaching  their  language  and  accomplish- 
ments. At  first  welcomed  as  an  opportune  reinforce- 
ment to  the  staff  of  instructors,  they  soon  incurred 
odium  by  their  tendency  to  suppress  the  sense  of 
nationality  and  independence  in  the  Russian  youth. 
The  earlier  satirical  literature  had  been  succeeded  by 
imitations  of  the  French  sentimental  writers  in  excellent 
harmony  with  the  tone  of  Alexander's  early  government ; 
but  now  both  were  superseded  by  a  patriotic  reaction, 
which  grew  more  violent  as  the  breach  between  the 
Tsar  and  Napoleon  widened.  The  circumstances  of 
Speranski's  rise  to  power  had  erroneously  marked  him 
as  an  adherent  of  France,  and  had  excited  against  him 
the  animosity  of  the  patriotic  party.  His  tribute  to  the 
French  code,  published  at  a  time  when  war  with  France 
was  imminent,  strengthened  the  attacks  of  his  enemies. 
Already  his  determination  to  reform  radically  the 
country,  his  utterances  concerning  an  impending  eman- 
cipation of  the  serfs,  his  indifference  to  high  society,  had 
made  him  an  object  of  detestation  to  the  aristocracy 


156         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

and  old  Russian  party.  Now  patriotism  leagued  with 
conservatism  and  jealousy  to  discredit  him  in  the  eyes 
of  the  Tsar.  For  a  short  time  Alexander's  impression- 
able nature  withstood  these  attacks,  but  gradually  he 
lost  faith  in  the  man  who  had  been  his  right  hand.  On 
the  occasion  of  a  comparatively  unimportant  indiscre- 
tion he  yielded  to  the  cries  of  treason,  and  hardly 
forbore  from  depriving  his  minister  of  life  as  well  as 
office.  In  March,  1812,  Speranski  was  suddenly 
banished  from  St.  Petersburg,  and  his  enemies  cele- 
brated what  they  called  the  first  victory  over  the  French. 

Commencement  of  Alexander's  Second  Period. — 
After  the  War  of  Liberation  Alexander  returned  home, 
filled  with  new  views  and  prepossessions.  To  the 
ambition  which  had  made  him  the  abettor  and  conqueror 
of  Napoleon,  he  had  added  indulgence  in  religious 
mysticism.  During  his  sojourn  in  Western  Europe  he 
came  under  the  influence  of  Christian  charlatans  and 
dreamers.  When  he  reached  home  he  was  more  a 
champion  of  the  Holy  Alliance  than  a  servant  to  the 
cause  of  humanity. 

Settlement  of  Scandinavia.  Sweden  under  Ber- 
nadotte. — Like  his  predecessors,  who  had  contributed 
to  the  civilization  of  Russia,  Alexander  considerably 
extended  the  limits  of  the  empire,  and  he  thus  became 
instrumental  in  effecting  the  settlement  of  Scandinavia, 
which  endured  till  yesterday.  He  seized  Finland  in 
1808,  and  by  the  Peace  of  Friderikshamm,  Sweden 
ceded  its  territory  up  to  the  river  Tornea,  together  with 
the  islands  of  Aland.  The  sturdy  resistance  of  the 
Finns  caused  Alexander  to  confirm  the  liberal  con- 
stitution which  Gustavus  III.  had  given  them.  Sweden's 
indemnity  for  this  loss  was  more  directly  due  to  the 
vicissitudes  of  the  revolutionary  wars.  Since  Carl  XHL, 
who  was  proclaimed  king  after  the  dethronement   of 


MOVEMENTS   IN  SCANDINAVIA  157 

Gustavus  IV.,  had  no  children,  and  the  Danish  prince 
who  was  elected  to  be  his  successor  died  suddenly 
under  suspicious  circumstances,  the  Swedes  made 
Bernadotte,  Prince  of  Ponte  Corvo,  heir  to  the  throne. 
This  marshal  of  Napoleon  was  a  Gascon  by  birth,  who 
had  already  abandoned  the  life  of  a  lawyer  for  a  military 
career,  when  the  Revolution  opened  to  his  soldierly  and 
administrative  abilities  a  rapid  advance  to  offices  of 
distinction.  During  his  administration  of  Hanover  and 
the  Hanse  towns,  he  had  gained  much  popularity ;  and 
by  his  treatment  of  the  Swedish  army  on  its  retreat  out 
of  Lauenburg  in  the  war  with  Prussia,  he  had  won  the 
regard  of  many  Swedish  officers.  His  appointment  to 
be  Sweden's  future  king  was  so  far  from  being  a  work 
of  Napoleon  that,  though  he  obtained  a  formally  cordial 
permission  to  accept  it,  both  parties  felt  the  change  to 
involve  a  total  reversal  of  their  relationship.  Bernadotte 
renounced  his  French  citizenship  and  embraced  the 
Lutheran  creed ;  he  was  adopted  by  Carl  XIII.  as  a 
son,  while  he  relieved  the  infirm  king  of  the  arduous 
business  of  government,  and  did  all  in  his  power  to 
shield  his  new  country  from  the  tyranny  of  his  former 
master.  Napoleon,  on  the  other  hand,  commenced  a 
relentless  persecution  of  Sweden  from  the  time  of  his 
instalment  in  power.  Still,  Bernadotte  was  a  typical 
product  of  the  Revolution,  and  Sweden  obtained  an 
appropriate  result  from  his  services.  From  its  own 
domestic  revolution  it  had  secured  constitutional 
changes,  which  formed  a  wholesome  modification  of 
the  monarchical  innovations  of  Gustavus  III.  From  its 
French  ruler  it  received  the  much  coveted  possession  of 
Norway.  Bernadotte  demanded  this  as  the  price  of  his 
assistance  to  Russia  against  France,  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  peace  with  Denmark  had  been  concluded 
long  ago  at  Jonkoping.     The  arbitrary  nature  of  the 


158         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

bargain  did   not    prevent    it    from    being    ratified    at 
Vienna. 

Denmark  loses  Norway,  1814. — The  sole  offence 
which  could  be  pleaded  to  justify  this  unprincipled 
dismemberment  was  Denmark's  alliance  with  Napoleon. 
The  fault,  or  rather  misfortune,  was  common  to  most 
European  countries  at  that  time,  and  Denmark  deserved 
retribution  less  than  any  other  continental  state. 
Under  its  regent,  who  became  Frederick  VI.  in  1808, 
and  his  minister  Bernstorff,  it  had  striven  to  preserve  a 
dignified  neutrality  throughout  the  revolutionary  wars, 
and  had  made  no  small  advance  in  civilization.  Serfage 
had  been  abolished  ;  the  slave  trade  had  been  prohibited 
earlier  than  in  any  other  state ;  education  had  been 
actively  encouraged,  and  trade  promoted.  But  the 
country  had  been  twice  attacked  by  England,  once  for 
expostulating  against  British  maritime  policy,  once  on 
suspicion  that  its  fleet  would  fall  a  prey  to  Napoleon. 
It  had  thus  finally  been  compelled  to  range  itself  on  the 
side  of  France.  It  had  also  been  obliged  to  maintain 
this  alliance  to  the  last  in  order  to  support  its  claim  on 
Norway,  But  in  the  campaign  of  18 13,  Bernadotte, 
who  was  anxious  to  do  the  French  as  little  damage  as 
possible,  in  view  of  the  contingency  of  his  being  called 
upon  to  be  Napoleon's  successor,  brought  the  Danes  to 
a  separate  peace,  and  compelled  them  by  the  treaty  of 
Kiel  to  cede  Norway  to  Sweden  in  exchange  for  Swedish 
Pomerania  and  the  Isle  of  Riigen.*  In  the  following 
November  Denmark  purchased  peace  with  England  by 

*  This  period  is  notable  for  another  successful  effort  of  the  Swedes  to 
disengage  their  peninsula  from  the  influence  of  the  Danes.  By  the  com- 
pletion of  the  TroUhoeta  canal,  which  opened  up  navigation  between 
Gothenburg  and  Lake  Wener,  a  system  of  internal  navigation  between  the 
Baltic  and  the  Kattegat  was  made  possible,  and  the  Swedes  were  rendered 
independent  of  Denmark's  command  of  the  Sound  and  other  natural 
channels  out  of  the  Baltic. 


MOVEMENTS  IN  SCANDINAVIA  159 

the  cession  of  Heligoland.  Further,  Prussia  completed 
its  misfortunes  by  taking  Swedish  Pomerania  and  Riigen 
at  the  arbitrary  valuation  of  Lauenburg  and  two  million 
thalers,  on  the  ground  that  it  had  fomented  an  insurrec- 
tion in  Norway  against  Swedish  rule.  The  Norwegians, 
more  akin  in  language  and  habits  to  the  Danes,  cherished 
a  keen  dislike  of  their  neighbours  over  the  mountains. 
When  they  heard  of  their  transference  to  Sweden  they 
declared  themselves  independent,  formed  an  almost 
republican  constitution,  and  elected  a  Danish  prince  to 
be  their  king.  But  Bernadotte  entered  their  country 
before  any  adequate  defence  could  be  prepared,  and 
they  were  compelled  to  bow  to  the  new  arrangement. 
Nevertheless,  they  succeeded  in  preserving  their  inde- 
pendent government,  constitution,  and  laws.  Their 
connection  with  Sweden,  indeed,  resulted  in  little  more 
than  allegiance  to  a  common  sovereign.  But  in  our 
own  time  we  have  seen  that  even  this  bond  has  proved 
too  irksome,  and  again  a  Danish  prince  has  been  chosen 
to  be  Norway's  king. 

Russian-Turkish  War,  1806-12.  Peace  of  Bucha- 
rest, May,  1812. — Towards  Turkey  Alexander  pursued 
the  traditional  policy  of  his  house  with  as  much  vigour 
as  Western  affairs  would  permit.  But  no  war  of  con- 
quest broke  out  till  1806,  for  Sultan  Selim  was  ready  to 
make  many  concessions  rather  than  to  interrupt  his  plans 
for  internal  reform  by  disturbing  the  peace  of  Jassy. 
This  war  dragged  on  till,  after  a  few  successes  and 
many  reverses,  the  Porte  obtained  in  18 12  peace  at  the 
price  of  Bessarabia  and  part  of  Moldavia.  Impending 
war  with  France  induced  Russia  to  be  content  with  the 
boundary  of  the  Pruth,  and  the  road  to  Constantinople 
was  left  still  too  long  and  difficult  for  the  comfort  of 
Muscovite  statesmen. 

Decay    of   the    Ottoman    Empire. — This    respite 


160         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

belied  the  expectations  which  onlookers  in  the  eighteenth 
century  had  formed  of  the  fate  of  the  Ottoman  empire. 
Since  the  Peace  of  Carlowitz,  in  1699,  the  Turks  had 
been  obliged  to  abandon  that  demeanour  of  scornful 
superiority  which  ignorance,  religious  arrogance,  and 
military  success  had  caused  them  to  assume  towards 
the  Giaours.  From  that  time  the  imperial  system,  which 
the  sultans  had  founded  on  the  word  of  the  Koran,  on 
contempt  for  infidels,  and  on  prowess  in  war,  was  in  full 
decline.  How  rapid  was  the  subsequent  decay  of  the 
Ottoman  power  in  Europe,  the  Peace  of  Kainardji 
showed  in  1774,  when  the  Turks  made  to  Russia  con- 
cessions directly  subversive  of  the  integrity  of  their 
empire.  At  that  time  the  final  triumph  of  the  cross 
over  the  crescent  was  regarded  as  merely  a  question  of 
convenience  to  Austria  and  Russia — a  question  which 
Joseph  and  Catherine  together  came  very  near  settling. 
Nor,  when  the  accession  of  the  wary  Leopold  to  Joseph's 
troubled  throne  rid  Turkey  of  one  of  its  traditional 
enemies,  was  the  ability  of  Russia  alone  to  restore 
Christian  worship  in  St.  Sophia  doubted  by  those  who 
were  cognisant  of  the  state  of  Ottoman  resources.  The 
will,  too,  to  undertake  the  enterprise  single-handed  was 
not  wanting  to  Catherine ;  and  it  is  notorious  that  the 
pacification  of  Jassy  was  only  an  armistice  to  enable 
the  Empress  to  gather  the  ripe  rewards  of  perfidy 
nearer  home.  But  the  death  of  Catherine  saved  the 
Porte  from  a  renewal  of  her  attack,  and  Turkey's  next 
cession  was  to  Alexander  by  the  Peace  of  Bucharest. 

Degeneracy  of  the  Janissaries. — Though  the  im- 
potence of  the  Turkish  armies  appeared  to  be  the  chief 
cause  of  the  threatened  collapse  of  the  Ottoman  empire, 
it  was  in  itself  only  one  consequence  of  a  more  general 
and  fatal  weakness.  Founded  upon  conquest  and 
organized   after   feudal    fashion,   the    heritage   of    the 


MOVEMENTS   IN   THE   OTTOMAN  EMPIRE    161 

sultans  retained  its  pristine  power  only  so  long  as 
its  rulers  were  extraordinarily  able  and  vigorous  men. 
But  no  really  great  potentate  was  produced  by  the 
House  of  Othman  after  Suleiman  the  Magnificent 
From  that  time,  in  spite  of  occasional  wise  ministers  and 
energetic  sultans,  the  government  of  the  Porte  degene- 
rated till  it  became  a  regime  of  feebleness,  corruption, 
and  imbecility,  such  as  only  an  oriental  despotism 
can  keep  in  existence.  At  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century  it  had  reached  the  lowest  depths  of  abasement. 
The  central  administration  was  ignorant  and  vicious 
beyond  belief;  and  the  provincial  governors,  though 
nominally  servants  of  the  sultan,  were  in  most  cases 
rulers  who  rendered  slight  allegiance  to  their  lord,  and 
often  withstood  his  mandates  to  the  extremity  of  civil 
war.  Long  ago  the  janissaries,  once  the  tribute  and 
terror  of  Christendom,  had  become  a  privileged  order 
of  insolent  Turkish  militia,  whose  incapacity  in  the  field 
was  only  equalled  by  pertinacity  in  preying  upon  the 
resources  of  the  state  and  the  earnings  of  the  peasant. 
Fear  of  their  insurrection  fettered  every  sultan,  for 
never  yet  had  the  government  been  able  to  oppose 
their  determined  demands.  Their  intolerance  of  every 
step  towards  reform  was  supported  by  the  fanatical 
bigotry  of  the  Moslem  mob.  It  effectually  prevented 
the  Ottoman  despots  from  discharging  those  functions 
of  order  and  civilization  which  are  the  part  of  monarchs 
when  feudal  discipline  has  ceased  to  render  tolerable 
the  institutions  of  mediaeval  barbarism. 

Accession  of  Selim  III.,  1789 — The  nature  of  these 
evils  and  the  history  of  other  nations  suggested  a 
remedy  to  be  immediately  applied  if  the  patrimony  of 
the  House  of  Othman  was  to  be  preserved  from  hostile 
dismemberment  or  spontaneous  disintegration.  In  most 
European  states  there  had  recently  been  shown  what 


162         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

the  advent  of  strong  and  enlightened  monarchs  could 
effect  for  national  disorders,  and  in  nearly  every  case 
it  had  been  proved  that  a  disciplined  standing  army 
was  the  indispensable  instrument  which  such  monarchs 
needed.  Now,  although  the  position  of  Turkish  sove- 
reigns was  very  weak,  and  not  the  rudiments  of  an 
efficient  military  force  existed,  it  was  conceivable  that 
a  sultan  of  strong  character  might  find  an  opportunity 
to  fortify  himself  against  the  rabble  of  Stamboul,  and 
train  an  army  capable  of  subduing  rebellious  pashas 
and  discontented  janissaries.  It  was,  therefore,  a  coin- 
cidence of  no  little  moment  that,  when  Turkey  was 
granted  an  intermission  of  foreign  attack,  a  prince  of 
no  common  calibre  was  reigning  at  Constantinople. 
Selim  III.  mounted  the  Turkish  throne  with  a  deter- 
mination to  root  out  abuse  and  introduce  Western 
reforms ;  but  he  made  all  his  efforts  subsidiary  to  the 
creation  of  an  efficient  standing  army.  He  found  the 
Ottoman  forces  without  uniformity  of  weapons  or  move- 
ments, with  no  condition  of  success  except  the  desperate 
valour  of  the  individual  Turk.  Perceiving  the  great 
superiority  conferred  by  discipline  and  drill,  he  resolved 
to  form  a  military  force  after  the  European  pattern.  A 
small  body  of  disciplined  soldiers  was  actually  service- 
able before  Bonaparte  invaded  Egypt.  This  step  was 
achieved  by  means  of  French  help ;  and  after  the 
renewal  of  peace  the  hollow  friendship  of  Napoleon 
continued  to  place  at  his  disposal  facilities  for  teaching 
his  subjects  to  fight  in  Western  fashion. 

Fall  of  Selim  III.  Accession  of  Mahmoud  II., 
1808. — But  Selim's  measures  against  the  insurgent 
janissaries  of  Servia  had  provoked  much  discontent 
among  the  order  and  among  his  Mohammedan  subjects. 
When  he  proceeded  to  ordain  that  picked  men  from 
the  irregular  troops   should    be  trained    into   regular 


MOVEMENTS  IN   THE  OTTOMAN  EMPIRE   163 

soldiers,  the  janissaries  murdered  his  agents  and 
attacked  the  new  force.  Finally,  those  of  Constanti- 
nople, in  league  with  the  Mufti,  Ulema,  and  Kaimakan, 
deposed  him  from  his  throne,  and  placed  thereon  Mus- 
tapha,  the  eldest  son  of  Abdul  Hamid.  Bairactar,  the 
loyal  pasha  of  Rustchuk,  attempted  to  restore  Selim, 
but  before  he  was  able  to  force  an  entrance  into  the 
seraglio,  the  unfortunate  ex-sultan  had  died  by  order 
of  Mustapha.  Mahmoud,  Mustapha's  brother  and  sole 
remaining  Ottoman  prince,  after  narrowly  escaping  a 
similar  fate,  was  immediately  raised  to  the  throne  by 
Bairactar,  who  assumed  the  office  of  grand  vizier.  But 
this  government  also  fell  in  the  endeavour  to  carry 
through  Selim's  abortive  project,  and  the  youthful 
Mahmoud  was  forced  to  acquiesce  in  the  demand  for 
a  return  to  the  old  institutions.  Without  experience, 
powerless,  and  at  war  with  Russia,  the  new  sultan  was 
long  compelled  to  observe  his  agreement  with  the 
impracticable  mob.  The  janissaries  little  suspected 
that  in  place  of  the  mild  Selim  they  had  made  sultan 
one  whose  grim  renown  was  to  be  that  of  destroyer 
of  their  tribe.  The  world,  too,  failed  to  understand  that 
the  worst  days  of  the  Ottoman  empire  were  drawing 
to  a  close.  Yet  in  Selim's  ill-fated  efforts,  in  the  in- 
choate plans  which  he  communicated  to  his  nephew 
when  sharing  his  imprisonment,  were  the  germs  of  a 
revival  of  the  Ottoman  despotism.  Through  them  the 
revolution,  too  distant  to  purge  Europe  of  Mussulman 
domination,  succeeded  in  imparting  such  small  impulse 
to  improvement  as  was  sufficient  to  prolong  the  life  of 
the  Ottoman  empire.  To  them  it  is  primarily  due  that 
the  Turk  still  vexes  South-Eastern  Europe,  and  that  a 
time  has  come  when  the  West  shudders  at  the  prospect 
of  his  withdrawal. 

New  Phase  of  Revolt  against  Turkish  Rule. — 


164         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

But  while  these  events  foreshadowed  a  continuance  of 
Turkish  rule  in  Europe,  others  were  tending  to  curtail 
its  extent.  The  revolts  of  the  Porte's  Christian  subjects, 
which  hitherto  had  aimed  only  at  helping  foreign  in- 
vaders, now  became  struggles  of  the  subject  nations  to 
help  themselves.  During  this  period  a  struggle  for 
independence  was  actually  carried  on  with  no  little 
success  by  the  Servian  people,  and  silent  preparations 
for  a  greater  revolt  were  being  undertaken  by  the 
Greeks. 

Position  of  the  Greeks  in  the  Empire.— Among 
the  Christian  subjects  of  the  Porte,  the  Greeks  occupied 
a  unique  position.  In  numbers  inferior  only  to  the 
Wallachian  and  Sclavonian  races,  they  possessed  an 
ecclesiastical,  official,  and  commercial  status  to  which 
other  Rayah  populations  could  lay  no  claim.  Over 
orthodox  nations  they  exercised,  of  course,  religious 
ascendency.  And,  together  with  spiritual  functions, 
the  Greek  Church  held  in  trust  for  the  Turkish 
government  extensive  official  authority. 

In  many  districts  the  Greek  laity  took  the  place  of 
a  middle  class.  In  some,  notably  in  Wallachia  and 
Moldavia,  they  were  as  supreme  as  the  Turks  were  in 
Greece.  In  Constantinople  they  filled  offices  of  respon- 
sibility in  the  government,  and  formed  the  wealthy 
quarter  of  the  Phanar.  But,  though  elevated  in  con- 
sideration of  their  own  abilities,  they  did  nothing  to 
civilize  the  Ottoman  government.  Useful  as  they  were 
to  their  masters,  they  brought  no  benefit  to  the  people 
committed  to  their  charge.  As  tax-gatherers  and 
deputy-governors  of  the  Turk,  they  were  hated  no  less 
for  falseness  and  rapacity  than  for  the  odious  nature  of 
their  office.  Nor  did  their  advancement  contribute 
much  to  the  weal  of  their  obscurer  brethren.  Instances 
did  occur  when  an  influential  Greek  used  his  power  to 


MOVEMENTS  IN  THE   OTTOMAN  EMPIRE    165 

ameliorate  the  condition  of  a  portion  of  his  race,  or 
to  help  a  fellow  in  misfortune ;  but  the  fame  of  the 
Phanariots  was  bad,  even  among  their  own  countrymen. 
Hence  the  advancement  of  individual  Greeks  did 
nothing  to  promote  the  growth  of  national  feeling  and 
patriotism  ;  while  disparity  of  condition,  and  the  intense 
egoism  and  unscrupulousness  of  the  Greek  character 
conspired  to  perpetuate  disunion. 

Intellectual  awakening  of  the  Greeks. — Between 
the  Greek  mind  and  the  enlightenment  of  the  eighteenth 
century  there  existed  a  natural  affinity.  Possessed 
with  a  pedantic  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  learning,  quick 
of  comprehension  yet  shallow,  encyclopaedic  but  in- 
capable of  severe  application,  the  Greeks  readily  par- 
ticipated in  the  intellectual  movement  which  then 
passed  over  Europe.  But  from  this  source  they  could 
derive  only  unrest  and  a  visionary  philanthropy.  Some- 
thing more  was  required  to  invigorate  and  unify  a 
people  whose  repute  it  was  to  be  as  jealous,  false,  and 
avaricious  among  themselves  as  they  were  servile 
towards  the  strong  and  piratical  towards  the  defenceless. 
Some  deeper  and  more  national  agency  was  necessary 
to  rally  round  a  common  standard  the  ill-used  peasantry 
and  the  privileged  communes,  the  thriving  traders  and 
,the  rapacious  satraps  and  officials,  the  patriotic  clergy 
'  and  the  traitorous  episcopacy.  Now  it  was  the  fortune 
of  the  Greeks  to  possess  a  heritage  capable  of  uniting 
all  who  spoke  their  tongue,  and  suggestive  to  all 
their  race  of  the  deeds  which  the  heroes  of  antiquity 
achieved  against  the  barbarians.  In  their  most  de- 
graded days  they  had  been  the  least  unlettered  of  the 
nations,  and  never  had  they  entirely  lost  sight  of  their 
reputed  origin.  As  has  recently  been  well  said,  they 
combine  "two  usually  irreconcilable  qualities — great 
aptitude  for  business  and  great  love  of  book-learning." 


166         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

Now,  when  the  fashionable  culture  of  Europe  was 
pervaded  with  admiration  for  classical  times,  they 
eagerly  studied  the  language  and  authors  of  ancient 
Hellas.  That  they  excelled  not  in  classical  erudition, 
according  to  the  standard  of  more  cultivated  nations, 
mattered  no  more  to  the  efficacy  of  this,  their  centraliz- 
ing medium,  than  did  the  want  of  permanent  worth  in 
the  productions  of  the  Sturm  und  Drang  period  affect 
the  potency  of  that  movement  over  the  German  people. 
The  study  alone  touched  the  most  patriotic  chords  of 
the  nation,  and  united  for  once  all  sections  in  pursuit 
of  a  common  object.  Tangible  proofs  of  result  were 
afforded  by  the  establishment  of  numerous  Hellenic 
schools.  Palpable  indication  of  a  deeper  influence  was 
given  by  the  construction  of  a  new  modern  language, 
intelligible  in  every  province,  neither  confined  to  the 
learned,  nor  unequal  to  the  wants  of  literary  expression. 
Koraes,  a  native  of  Chios,  was  the  guardian  of  this 
reform.  He  was  the  arbitrator  between  those  who 
desired  to  retain  unaltered  the  people's  dialect  and  those 
who  advocated  a  return  to  the  classical  language.  But 
better  known  is  Rhigas,  the  poet  of  the  revolutionary 
aspirations  which  were  kindled  by  the  sight  of  the 
French  Republic.  His  songs  gained  rapid  and  exten- 
sive currency,  and  he  was  one  of  the  first  to  plot  the 
liberation  of  Greece.  He  was,  moreover,  the  first 
martyr  for  the  national  cause,  being  betrayed,  in  1798, 
by  the  Austrian  police  to  the  Pasha  of  Belgrade.  He 
died,  it  is  said,  with  the  prophecy  on  his  lips  that  the 
nation  must  some  day  reap  the  fruits  of  the  seed  he  had 
sown.  From  him  dated  the  insurrectionary,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  nationalizing,  influence  of  the 
literary  revival. 

The  Philomuse  Society,  1812.     Disregard  of  the 
Powers  at  Vienna, — It  was  inevitable  that  the  energy 


MOVEMENTS   IN  THE   OTTOMAN   EMPIRE    167 

of  intellectual  progress  should  be  diverted  by  mortifying 
reality  into  the  path  of  revolutionary  agitation.  The 
grievous  contrast  between  the  ideal  and  the  existent 
made  it  impossible  for  those  who  laboured  for  the  one 
to  remain  patiently  harassed  by  the  other.  Even  the 
judicious  and  temperate  Koraes  was  not  averse  to  the 
methods  of  force  if  a  favourable  opportunity  for  their 
employment  presented  itself.  The  fiery  Rhigas,  deluded 
both  as  regards  the  readiness  of  the  Greeks  for  re- 
bellion and  the  succour  which  Bonaparte's  oriental 
campaign  might  bring  to  the  sultan's  subjects,  threw 
himself  into  the  work  of  sedition  with  incautious  ardour. 
A  premature  victim  to  the  spirit  of  reaction,  he  never- 
theless bequeathed  to  his  countrymen  the  plan  of 
secret  combination  which,  though  frustrated  in  the  first 
instance  by  his  death,  furnished  a  model  for  later  and 
more  successful  organizations.  In  1812  and  18 14  were 
established  the  two  societies  which  have  made  memor- 
able the  abortive  association  of  Rhigas.  The  first  was 
the  Philomuse  Society,  which  was  established  at  Athens 
for  the  ostensible  purpose  of  encouraging  literature  and 
education,  and,  with  special  reference  to  Lord  Elgin's 
late  raid,  of  preserving  the  relics  of  ancient  art;  the 
second  was  the  Philik6  Hetairia,  a  secret  society  for  the 
purpose  of  creating  a  rebellion  against  Turkey.  But 
the  conspirators  for  culture  were  no  more  able  to  avoid 
political  action  than  were  the  conspirators  for  revolution. 
In  their  quiet  way  they  probably  did  no  less  to  produce 
the  sanguinary  outbreak  which  belongs  to  the  history 
of  a  later  period.  They  proceeded  to  the  high  court  of 
nations  at  Vienna,  and  there  stated  the  demand  of 
Greece  for  freedom.  They  enlisted  in  their  cause  much 
sympathy,  and  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  the 
inheritors  of  the  present  pay  homage  to  their  glorious 
namesakes  of  antiquity.    They  received  into  their  ranks 


168         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

the  Tsar  and  other  princes,  and  bestowed  upon  them 
and  many  ministers  the  ring  of  their  order.  Yet  they 
gained  nothing  ;  and  they  left  Vienna  in  the  same 
capacity  as  the  hired  cooks  and  artists,  as  discarded 
amusers  of  the  wealthy  and  noble. 

The  Philike  Hetairia,  1814. — Then  the  Greeks 
knew  that  they  had  nothing  to  expect  from  the  powers 
in  peace,  and  that  they  must  win  their  independence 
by  something  more  cogent  than  appeals  to  justice  and 
sentiment.  But  the  Philomuse  society  was  not  fit  for  a 
turbulent  and  belligerent  work.  It  could  only  educate ; 
it  could  not  fight.  Some  different  association  was  re- 
quired to  carry  the  matter  to  another  stage.  This  was 
supplied  by  the  Philik6  Hetairia,  which  was  established 
in  Odessa  by  illiterate  merchants  filled  with  chagrin  by 
the  behaviour  of  the  Congress.  It  existed  at  a  time 
when  secret  societies  were  thought  to  be  rife  in  Europe, 
and  thus  a  fictitious  importance  has  been  reflected  on 
it.  But,  in  truth,  it  possessed  no  member  nor  charac-'l . 
teristic  to  lift  it  above  similar  combinations  of  a  vulgar 
order ;  and  it  abounded  in  the  corruption  and  childish- 
ness natural  to  such  organizations.  Nevertheless,  it 
represented  the  dominant  tendency  of  the  nation  at  the 
time ;  it  was  in  the  hands  of  men  of  action,  if  not  of 
discretion ;  and,  as  it  hailed  from  the  land  of  the  Tsar, 
it  never  scrupled  to  refer  to  the  Russian  autocrat  as  its 
abettor.  Its  deeds  and  follies  belong  to  the  tale  of  the 
Greek  revolution  itself,  but  its  existence  was  as  charac- 
teristic of  Greek  disgust  at  the  policy  of  reaction  as  the 
sette  were  of  Italy's  disappointment. 

Influence  of  Ali  Pasha. — In  the  Ottoman  empire 
there  were  seldom  long  wanting  favourable  opportunities 
for  insurrection.  In  behalf  of  Servia,  rebel  pashas  and 
janissaries  paralyzed  the  sultan's  power;  to  Greece 
a  mutinous   pasha    and   the  disordered    state    of  the 


MOVEMENTS  IN  THE   OTTOMAN  EMPIRE    169 

provincial  militia  afforded  facilities  for  revolt.  The  pasha 
was  Ali,  the  Albanian  ruler  of  Janina,  who  arrived  at 
the  summit  of  his  power  during  this  period.  In  those 
days  all  the  ferocity  and  disquietude  of  the  Middle  Ages 
survived  in  Albania,  and  Ali  recommended  himself  to 
the  Porte  by  his  success  in  extirpating  the  lawless 
chieftains  who  disputed  his  supremacy.  When  leading 
his  contingent  against  Pasvanoglu,  the  mighty  pasha 
of  Widdin,  he  discovered  the  rottenness  of  the  Otto- 
man power,  and  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that,  by 
unsparing  bloodshed  and  unfaltering  guile,  he  could 
found  a  principality  of  his  own  before  he  died.  A 
principality  he  did,  indeed,  win  for  himself,  and  in  it 
he  wielded  that  tyranny  which  suffers  no  iniquity  but 
its  own.     He  was — 

"  Albania's  chief,  whose  dread  command 
Is  lawless  law ;  for  with  a  bloody  hand 
He  sways  a  nation,  turbulent  and  bold." 

But  his  schemes  miscarried  when  his  authority  seemed 
most  firmly  established.  He  hoped  to  form  a  Greek 
and  Albanian  kingdom,  and  renounce  all  allegiance  to 
the  Porte.  Ignorant  of  the  formidable  character  of 
Sultan  Mahmoud,  he  thought  that  it  would  be  an  easy 
task  to  sever  all  connection  with  Constantinople ;  mis- 
apprehending the  nature  of  the  movement  in  Greece, 
he  thought  that  the  Christians  would  willingly  make 
common  cause  with  him  against  the  Turks.  But  the 
grand  signior  proved  too  strong  for  him ;  and  the 
Greeks  were  thinking  of  other  refuge  from  Turkish 
tyranny  than  All's  despotism  and  sham  constitutions. 
Hence  the  result  of  his  life's  villainy  was  to  smooth  the 
way  for  a  Greek  insurrection,  and  of  his  death-struggle 
to  create  a  diversion  of  the  Ottoman  forces  which  aided 
the  outbreak.     His  fall  forms  the  counterpart  to  the 


170         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

operations  of  the  Philik^  Hetairia  as  the  immediate 
occasion  of  the  Greek  revolution. 

Servia  harassed  by  the  Janissaries. — Though  a 
greater  sufferer  from  Turkish  cruelty,  Servia  was  happier 
than  Greece  in  preserving  its  courage  and  sense  of 
nationality.  The  brave  Serbs  had  never  lost  all  remem- 
brance of  their  empire  and  the  disaster  of  Kossova. 
When  restoring  the  country  to  the  Porte,  by  the  Peace  of 
Sistova,  Austria  had  stipulated  for  a  complete  amnesty 
to  all  the  inhabitants  who  had  taken  part  in  the  war 
against  the  sultan.  Conformably  with  this  agreement, 
they  received  a  pasha  who  seems  to  have  striven  to 
rule  the  province  with  mildness  and  equity ;  and  his 
successor  won  by  his  solicitude  for  the  welfare  of  the 
pashalik  the  title  of  the  "  Servian  Mother.'*  But  judi- 
cious appointments  from  Constantinople  were  powerless 
to  secure  the  Serbs  from  oppression.  The  janissaries 
of  Belgrade  were  the  most  unruly  of  their  order,  and 
they  not  only  preyed  upon  the  Rayahs,  but  openly 
contested  with  the  spahis  for  possession  of  the  country. 
At  last  the  complaints  of  the  Serbs  and  spahis  com- 
pelled the  sultan  to  remonstrate  with  the  freebooting 
janissaries,  by  obscurely  threatening  them  with  punish- 
ment at  the  hands  of  soldiers  of  a  different  nation  and 
creed.  Hereupon  the  janissaries,  conjecturing  that  a 
rising  of  the  Rayahs  was  referred  to,  hastened  to 
massacre  all  who  were  likely  to  prove  dangerous  to 
their  power.  At  first  overwhelmed  with  dismay,  the 
Serbs  soon  organized  a  valiant  resistance,  and,  with  the 
open  connivance  of  the  sultan,  they  victoriously  crushed 
the  dominion  of  their  oppressors. 

Revolt  oi  the  Serbs. — The  Serbs  then  began  to 
consider  some  better  means  of  providing  for  their  future 
safety  than  a  return  to  the  old  state  of  dependency  on 
the  Ottoman  Porte.   They  hesitated  to  obey  the  sultan's 


MOVEMENTS  IN  THE  OTTOMAN  EMPIRE   171 

commands  to  resume  their  usual  occupations.  While 
they  did  not  contemplate  repudiating  his  suzerainty, 
they  cast  about  for  some  more  efficient  protection. 
Advances  were  made  to  Austria,  but  failed  to  receive 
cordial  response.  Application  was  then  made  to  Russia, 
who  had  ever  manifested  great  tenacity  in  retaining 
concessions  from  the  Porte,  and  had  vigilantly  exercised 
a  protectorate  over  Moldavia  and  Wallachia.  In  the 
protracted  conflict  which  followed,  the  Serbs  became 
the  allies  of  the  Russians.  Unfortunately,  their  leaders 
were  induced  to  place  implicit  confidence  in  the  Tsar. 
In  the  Peace  of  Bucharest  they  insisted  on  coming  to 
terms  through  Russia  rather  than  directly  with  the 
Porte.  Yet  throughout  the  war  the  people  continued 
to  be  guided  by  the  idea  that  they  "  should  obtain  every 
internal  liberty  possible  without  breaking  the  external 
bonds  with  Constantinople ; "  and  it  was  a  fatal  conse- 
quence of  the  political  incapacity  of  their  chiefs  that 
they  sought  to  compass  this  end  by  means  of  the  good 
offices  of  the  Porte's  worst  foe.  Hence,  in  the  treaty 
of  Bucharest,  the  stipulations  in  behalf  of  Servia's  in- 
ternal autonomy  took  the  form  of  concessions  unsup- 
ported by  any  guarantee.  The  circumstances  under 
which  the  treaty  was  made  left  the  Porte  at  liberty  to 
construe  these  concessions  as  it  chose.  It  commenced 
by  robbing  them  of  all  validity  by  refusing  to  leave  the 
Serbs  their  arms,  or  to  assure  them  against  the  return 
of  the  spahis. 

Defective  Organization  of  the  Serbs. — On  the 
Serbs  themselves,  then,  depended  what  benefit  they 
should  reap  from  their  hardships  and  sacrifices.  These, 
again,  brave  as  ever,  and  more  confident  than  at  first, 
depended  on  their  organization  for  what  effective  action 
they  could  oppose  against  the  armies  of  the  sultan. 
Now,  the  original  primitive  village  government  of  the 


172         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

Serbs  had  been  prevented  from  adapting  itself  to  the 
requirements  of  national  administration,  not  only  by 
the  violent  nature  of  the  revolution,  but  also  by  the 
ambitions  which  a  military  career  had  generated  in  the 
more  influential  men.  The  chiefs,  to  whom  victory  was 
due,  were  unwilling  to  surrender  their  authority  when 
the  Turks  were  not  present,  and  the  imminence  of  a 
return  of  the  enemy  caused  their  pretensions  to  be 
tolerated.  Yet  the  rule  of  such  men  could  not  but  be 
rude,  grasping,  and  disunited.  Some  approach  was 
certainly  made  to  a  national  government  from  the  first ; 
but  virtually  the  central  power  was  vested  in  the  chief 
leader  on  the  battlefield.  This  was  Kara  George,*  a 
Servian  peasant,  who  had  passed  some  time  in  the 
Austrian  service,  and  was  prospering  by  the  trade  of  a 
pig-dealer  when  the  war  broke  out.  As  a  warrior  he 
deserved  the  confidence  of  his  countrymen,  but  as  a 
diplomatist  he  was  childishly  incapable  of  coping  with 
the  disunion  of  his  colleagues  and  the  intrigues  of  the 
accredited  Russian  agents. 

Defeat  of  the  Serbs.— The  Turks,  on  the  other 
hand,  advanced  to  coerce  the  Serbs  with  the  armies 
which  had  served  against  Russia ;  and  Belgrade  was 
soon  left  to  the  mercy  of  the  enemy.  Then  was  mani- 
fested once  again  how  unfavourable  to  the  production  of 
heroes  is  a  long  spell  of  Turkish  dominion.  The  senate, 
the  military  chiefs,  even  the  rugged  Kara  George  him- 
self, fled  beyond  the  frontier  into  Austria.  The  people, 
paralyzed  by  these  defections,  awaited  in  trembling  the 
cruelties  of  Turkish  vengeance.  One  leader  alone 
refused  to  desert  his  country  in  the  hour  of  need. 
Milosh  Obrenovics  remained  behind  to  mediate  between 

*  Or  Black  George,  on  account  of  his  gloomy  disposition.  Kara  is 
the  Turkish  word,  and  Czerni  the  Servian,  for  "black,"  but  the  former  is 
most  frequently  used  in  history. 


MOVEMENTS  IN  THE  OTTOMAN  EMPIRE    173 

the  despairing  Serbs  and  their  conquerors.  By  craft  and 
corruption  he  redeemed  his  countrymen  from  some  of 
their  miseries,  though  he  secretly  prepared  for  a  new 
insurrection.  While  he  pacified  the  nation,  he  ascer- 
tained that  no  help  was  to  be  looked  for  from  the 
powers  at  Vienna;  while  he  pandered  to  Turkish 
avarice,  he  sought  an  opportune  moment  for  renewed 
rebellion.  Resistance  against  Turkish  misusage  was 
about  to  pass  into  tentative  but  steadfast  efforts  to 
secure  entire  freedom  from  Ottoman  occupation. 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  IN  ENGLAND 

"  To  produce  a  state  of  things  in  which  the  physical  advantages  j 
of  civilized  life  can  exist  in  a  high  degree,  the  stimulus  of  increasing 
comforts  and  constantly  elevated  desires  must  have  been  felt  by 
millions ;  since  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  a  few  individuals  to  create 
that  wide  demand  for  useful  and  ingenious  applications,  which 
alone  can  lead  to  great  and  rapid  improvements,  unless  backed  by 
that  arising  from  the  speedy  diffusion  of  the  same  advantages 
among  the  mass  of  mankind."— Sir  John  Herschel. 

"  There  would  be  nothing  capricious  or  perverse  in  treating  the 
expansion  of  England  over  the  seas  as  strictly  secondary  to  the 
expansion  of  England  within  her  own  shores,  and  to  all  the  causes 
of  it  in  the  material  resources  and  the  energy  and  the  ingenuity  of 
her  sons  at  home.  Supposing  that  a  historian  were  to  choose  to 
fix  on  the  mechanical  and  industrial  development  of  England  as 
the  true  point  of  view,  we  are  not  sure  that  as  good  a  case  might 
not  be  made  out  for  the  inventions  of  Arkwright,  Hargreaves,  and 
Crompton  as  for  the  acquisition  of  the  colonies  ;  for  Brindley  and 
Watt  as  for  Clive  and  Hastings." — John  Morley. 

Area  of  the  English  Industrial  Revolution. — Social 
revolutions  may  be  roughly  classed  as  political  and 
economical.  The  ground-plan  of  modern  continental 
Europe  was  especially  the  work  of  political  agencies, 
notwithstanding  the  vast  economical  changes  involved ; 
the  ground-work  of  modern  England  was  primarily  the 
result  of  industrial  progress,  notwithstanding  the  total 
redistribution  of  political  power  ultimately  implied. 
But  while  the  great  European  revolution  was  confined 
within  its  own  area,  the  industrial  revolution  of  England 

174 


INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  IN  ENGLAND    175 

has  been  more  cosmopolitan  than  any  other  event  in 
recorded  history.  The  one  was  chiefly  consequent  on 
decay,  and  wholly  directed  by  an  imaginary  return  to 
primitive  right.  The  other  was  produced  by  a  society, 
not  without  a  tolerable  share  of  natural  equity,  pressing 
forward  to  utilize  the  powers  which  human  ingenuity 
and  organization  had  gained  over  physical  conditions. 
Hence,  while  the  first  extended  only  where  certain 
social  evils  prevailed,  the  second  has  become  the  birth- 
right of  every  community  which  has  reached  a  certain 
stage  of  progress.*  Hence,  too,  instead  of  being  con- 
ducted by  warriors  and  legislators,  whose  services  are 
limited  to  their  country  and  age,  the  English  industrial 
revolution  was  the  work  of  massive  popular  tendencies 
which  are  dominant  wherever  mankind  is  possessed  of 
vigour  and  freedom. 

Advance  of  Agriculture. — Among  industries,  agri- 
culture is  the  one  which  supports  all  others  ;  and  in  the 
days  of  which  we  treat,  men  were  still  able  to  regard 
the  cultivation  of  England's  soil  as  the  foundation  of 
English  industry.  It  was  therefore  an  event  of  the  first 
importance  that,  during  the  eighteenth  century,  a  new 
system  of  husbandry,  stock-breeding,  and  agrarian 
economy  came  into  operation  which  bade  fair  to  keep 
pace  with  the  needs  of  a  rapidly  increasing  population. 
The  traditional  system  had  been  distinctly  Virgilian ; 
and  Virgil  had  written  in  the  first  Georgic — 

"  At  si  non  fuerit  Tellus  fcecunda,  sub  ipsum 
Arcturum  tenui  sat  erit  suspendere  sulco." 

Now,  said  Jethro  Tull,  the  first  and  greatest  of  the 
theoretical  innovators,  "  None  of  the  improvements 
made  on  any  sort  of  arable  land  by  foreign  grasses  or 

*  "La  revolution  industrielle  en  Angleterre  a  ete  la  preface  de  la 
revolution  industrielle  dans  le  monde  entier." — Mantoux. 


176         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

turnips  could  have  been  introduced  into  Britain  without 
renouncing  the  sat  erit  doctrine  of  Virgil ;  for  they 
will  not  succeed  on  any  sort  of  land  without  pulveriza- 
tion by  tillage ;  and  they  are  most  generally  made  on 
light  land,  and  therefore  may  be  properly  called  anti- 
Virgilian."  At  that  time  agricultural  improvements 
were  very  slowly  diffused.  When  Arthur  Young  made 
his  tours  in  1768  and  1770,  he  found  in  the  more  back- 
ward districts  abundant  survivals  from  the  period  of 
rude  and  slovenly  practice.  To  add  an  extreme  instance 
to  his  testimony,  it  is  worth  recalling  that  a  select 
committee  on  agriculture,  in  1833,  elicited  the  fact  that 
so  lately  as  18 17  the  natives  of  Cardiganshire  had  to 
be  taught  how  to  grow  green  crops  before  they  could 
enjoy  any  fresh  mutton  or  beef  in  winter.  But  thirty 
years  after  his  tours,  Young  was  able  to  write  of  the 
country  in  general,  "  The  great  flight  has  been  taken 
in  the  last  forty  years,"  and  "  curious  it  is  to  me  now  to 
travel  and  see  the  marvellous  change."  From  the  wars 
agriculturists  received  fresh  stimulus  to  exertion,  and 
capital  was  laid  out  more  freely  than  ever  on  the  land. 
By  181 3  the  agricultural  produce  of  the  United  King- 
dom had  increased  by  one-fourth  within  the  preceding 
ten  years ;  *  rents  had  risen  considerably  over  one 
hundred  per  cent.,  after  all  possible  influence  of  war 
prices  was  discounted,  and  the  stiff  lands,  which  formerly 
commanded  the  best  price,  had  fallen  in  value  below 
the  lighter  soils  when  managed  under  the  new  tillage. 

♦  "In  1710  the  cattle  and  sheep  sold  at  Smithfield  Market  weighed,  at 
an  average,  as  follows : — Beeves,  370  lbs. ;  calves,  50  lbs.  ,*  sheep,  28  lbs. ; 
and  lambs,  i8  lbs.  Now  it  may  be  stated,  beeves,  800  lbs. ;  calves, 
148  lbs. ;  sheep,  80  lbs.  j  and  lambs,  50  lbs." — Report  from  the  Select 
Committee  on  the  Cultivation  of  Waste  Lands ^  1795,  Appendix  {B).  Sir 
John  Sinclair,  whose  words  these  are,  attributes  much  of  this  improvement 
to  the  improved  pasturage  afforded  by  enclosed  land.  But  scientific 
breeding  also  greatly  assisted,  though  only  by  help  of  better  feeding 
conditions. 


INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  IN  ENGLAND    177 

Transformation  of  the  Textile  Industries. — 
Meanwhile  steam  and  machinery  transformed  the  con- 
ditions and  results  of  manufactures.  As  the  scale  of 
production  was  raised  by  improved  methods  and 
appliances,  the  industries  received  new  organization. 
Many  were  superseded  by  new  discoveries  ;  others  were 
surpassed  by  those  more  adapted  to  derive  advantage 
from  mechanical  improvements.  The  economy  of  the 
textile  trade  was  entirely  changed.  Formerly  wool  was 
the  staple  product,  and  woollen  goods  the  most  im- 
portant commodity  of  England,  by  reason  of  the  quality 
of  its  fleeces  and  the  expertness  of  its  manufacturers. 
But  as  mutton  came  into  greater  demand,  though  the 
weight  of  the  fleece  increased  with  the  carcase,  the 
supply  of  long  or  combing  wool  greatly  deteriorated. 
This  circumstance  was  aggravated  in  1802  and  18 13  by 
duties  imposed  on  the  importation  of  foreign  wool ;  but 
before  the  century  began  it  had  been  clear,  even  to 
those  who  still  regarded  the  woollen  industry  as  a  more 
important  national  concern  than  any  other  textile 
manufacture,  that  it  was  suffering  from  languor  induced 
by  the  difBculty  of  applying  machinery.  The  fabric 
which  was  gaining  advantage  over  it  on  this  account 
was  cotton.*  Though  mentioned  in  the  records  of 
England  some  centuries  earlier,  true  cottons  were  not 
manufactured  till  late  in  the  eighteenth  century,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  English  workmen  were  unable  to 
spin  pure  cotton  threads  of  sufficient  tenacity  for  warp, 

*  "The  cotton  manufacture  had  been  a  flourishing  industry  at  Antwerp 
— a  port  where  the  necessary  materials  were  easily  procurable  from  Egypt. 
Its  first  beginnings  in  England  are  very  obscure,  but  it  had  begun  to  attract 
attention  as  an  important  trade  in  the  rising  town  of  Manchester  in  the 
earlier  part  of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  beginnings  of  the  manufacture 
in  Lancashire  appear  to  follow  very  closely  on  its  decline  at  Antwerp  ;  and 
there  is  at  least  a  considerable  probability  in  ascribing  the  development  of 
this  highly  skilled  art  to  the  immigration  of  refugees." — Miss  Lilian  Tonrn, 
apud  Cunningham, 


178         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

and  could  only  use  cotton  for  weft.  The  delicate 
fingers  of  the  Hindus  could  construct  webs  of  exquisite 
fineness,  which  were  the  wonder  and  despair  of  Euro- 
peans, and  all  genuine  cotton  cloths  in  England  were 
imported  from  India.  But  a  series  of  inventions  pro- 
duced looms  and  spinning  jennies  capable  of  making 
cotton  fabrics  which  competed  successfully  with  Indian 
goods,  even  in  the  Indian  market  itself.  Further,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  an  abundant  supply 
of  the  raw  material  from  America  was  ensured,  partly 
by  the  invention  of  Whitney's  gin,  for  separating  the 
fibre  from  the  seeds  of  the  plant,  and  partly  by  the 
purchase  of  Louisiana  by  the  United  States  from 
Napoleon.  Hence,  though  the  woollen  manufacture 
advanced,  cotton  obtained  a  superiority  over  the 
ancient  staple  which  quite  changed  the  relationship 
between  English  raw  produce  and  English  manufactured 
fabrics. 

General  Advance  of  Manufactures. — Striking  as 
is  this  creation  of  a  new  industry,  it  was  but  a  con- 
spicuous example  of  what  was  taking  place  in  all 
manufactures.  Throughout  the  textile  trades  machinery 
evoked  new  growths  and  new  forms  of  old  processes. 
The  Staffordshire  potteries  were  established  on  an 
entirely  new  basis  by  Wedgwood's  production  of  a  new 
kind  of  cream-coloured  earthenware.  The  discovery  of 
methods  for  using  coal  in  smelting  and  puddling  iron, 
and  the  consequent  removal  of  the  furnaces  from  the 
vanishing  forests  to  the  coal  country,  had  already 
founded  the  English  iron  trade,  when  the  steam-engine 
gave  it  additional  impetus.  The  output  of  coal  was 
proportionately  increased  by  the  growing  demands  of 
furnaces  and  steam-engines,  and  by  the  facilities 
afforded  by  improved  methods  of  ventilation,  steam- 
pumps,   and    the   use  of   more  economical   means  of 


INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  IN  ENGLAND    179 

supporting  the  roofs  of  mines.  As  cause  and  conse- 
quence of  this  industrial  advance  was  the  development 
of  means  of  transport.  London  was  furnished  with 
adequate  docks,  and  on  the  coast  harbours  were  con- 
structed and  improved.  Much  was  done  to  repair  and 
extend  the  highways,  though  much  was  left  for  another 
generation  to  do.  But  in  the  construction  of  canals  a 
new  era  began.  Sudden  changes  of  level  in  the  country 
to  be  traversed,  which  had  been  the  main  obstacles  to 
earlier  engineers,  were  overcome  by  Brindley,  when 
making  a  canal  from  the  Duke  of  Bridgewater's  col- 
lieries at  Worsley  to  Manchester,  by  carrying  an 
aqueduct  over  the  Irwell.  The  same  enterprising 
nobleman  and  sagacious  engineer  also  joined  Man- 
chester and  Liverpool  by  a  water  road,  in  spite  of  still 
greater  difficulties.  The  pecuniary  return  to  the  pro- 
prietor from  these  ventures  was  very  great,  and  skill 
and  capital  were  attracted  to  the  work  till  the  greater 
part  of  our  system  of  inland  navigation  was  constructed 
by  1825.  Thus,  too,  a  class  of  navvies,  more  efficient 
for  heavy  work  than  any  other  labourers  in  the  world, 
was  trained  in  time  to  give  England  a  commanding 
advantage  in  the  making  of  railways. 

Expansion  of  Trade. — To  these  prime  causes  of 
the  industrial  revolution  must  be  added  assistant  cir- 
cumstances, which  greatly  promoted  its  rapid  course. 
The  fact  that  the  most  flourishing  industries  were  new, 
or  newly  organized,  favoured  their  development  by 
protecting  them  from  the  restrictive  customs  and  laws 
which  still  hampered  the  older  trades  and  handicrafts. 
For  the  same  reason  the  new  agriculture  made  most 
rapid  progress  in  districts  like  Lincoln  heath,  barren 
under  the  old  methods,  and  in  Northumberland,  where 
moss-troopers  and  border  frays  had  been  the  cause  of 
prolonged  desolation.     The  wars,  which  absorbed  all 


180         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

the  energies  and  exaggerated  all  the  wants  of  Europe, 
long  supplied  to  production  the  incitement  of  a  greedy- 
market.  When  the  System  embarrassed  continental 
trade,  the  ships  of  Britain  sought  and  found  in  more 
distant  lands  demand  for  what  goods  the  smugglers  left 
on  the  hands  of  the  manufacturers.  Our  mercantile 
marine  grew  at  a  greatly  accelerated  rate  during  the 
eighteenth  century.  The  wars,  while  they  temporarily- 
hindered  its  advance,  only  conquered  a  wider  field  for 
commercial  operations.  The  same  contest,  which  drew 
upon  England  the  continental  blockade  and  war  with 
America,  added  to  its  colonial  empire  Ceylon,  Malta, 
Mauritius,  the  Cape,  St  Lucia,  Trinidad,  Demerara, 
and  Essequibo.  The  same  period  was  marked  by  the 
foundation  of  our  Australasian  empire  and  an  immense 
extension  of  our  Indian  dependency.  England's  naval 
supremacy  having  been  confirmed,  markets  were  also 
safely  sought  where  victory  or  commercial  enterprise 
had  established  no  welcome  station.  Thus  by  the  end 
of  the  wars  the  new  industrial  system  had  been  firmly 
founded.  Manufactories  had  been  built,  operatives 
marshalled,  needs  created,  and  the  national  livelihood 
made  dependent  on  an  entirely  new  organization. 
Never  before  had  such  an  extensive  advance  in  tech- 
nical art  and  scale  of  production  been  made ;  never 
before  had  social  changes  of  such  moment  been  achieved 
so  rapidly  or  wrought  so  permanently. 

Sufferings  of  the  Labouring  Classes. — But  while 
the  nation  grew  rich,  populous  and  powerful,*  the  poorer 

^  ♦  In  a  few  years  before  1800  the  exports  of  our  home  industry  increased 
nearly  one-third,  and  in  the  next  decade  and  a  half  they  more  than 
doubled.  Increase  of  population  was  nearly  as  remarkable.  During  the 
latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  people  of  England  and  Wales 
multiplied  nearly  twice  as  fast  as  in  the  previous  fifty  years  ;  and  in  1801 
they  are  estimated  to  have  reached  in  round  figures  the  number  of  9, 187,000, 
including  sailors  and  soldiers.     In  181 1  this  number  rose  to  10,407,000; 


INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  IN  ENGLAND    181 

classes  of  the  community  suffered  grievous  hardships. 
Daily  experience  and  historical  investigation  demon- 
strate that  of  all  revolutions  an  industrial  one  is  most 
productive  of  incidental  woe.  In  this  case  the  misery 
was  enhanced  by  the  harshest  operations  of  change.  It 
was  a  transition  from  hand  labour  to  machine  work  ; 
from  the  small  house  industry  to  the  great  factory 
system;  from  considerate  custom  to  implacable  com- 
petition ;  from  imperfectly  differentiated  agents  in 
production  to  the  conscious  antagonism  of  land,  capital, 
and  labour ;  from  the  staid  contentment  of  the  country 
to  the  feverish  rivalry  of  the  town.  Like  all  transitions, 
it  bore  hardly  on  certain  portions  of  society  ;  like  most, 
and  worse  than  most,  it  bore  hardest  on  the  lowest  and 
most  numerous  classes.  These  classes  were  the  labour- 
ing poor.  No  other  name  can  describe  them  more 
characteristically  at  this  time.  It  was  indeed  the  grim 
truth,  that  to  be  a  labourer  in  those  days  was  to   be 

and  the  same  rate  of  increase  continued  for  the  next  ten  years.  In  i8oi 
Scotland  contained  1,599,000  inhabitants;  in  181 1  they  numbered  1,805,800, 
not  including  soldiers  and  sailors.  For  Ireland,  no  trustworthy  accounts  of 
population  at  this  time  exist.  Pitt's  estimate  of  the  taxable  incomes  at  the 
close  of  the  eighteenth  century  amounted  to  rather  more  than  ;^  100, 000, 000 
a  year  ;  sixteen  years  afterwards  incomes  exceeding  these  by  half  as  much 
again  were  taxed  by  the  state.  Previously  to  the  war  the  national 
expenditure  had  been  about  ;^20,ooo,ooo  per  annum  ;  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  contest  it  averaged  ;^ioo,ooo,ooo  ;  and  the  National  Debt  was  increased 
by  nearly  ;^6oo,ooo,ooo.  Yet  it  was  believed  at  the  time  that  the  debt  t 
was  being  steadily  paid  off.  Pitt  passed  in  1786  a  bill  for  liquidating  the 
principal  of  the  debt  by  means  of  the  wondrous  powers  of  compound 
interest.  Though  the  annual  contribution  to  the  sinking  fund  was  soon  for 
the  most  part  raised  by  loan,  and  it  purchased  stock  which  had  itself  been 
created  by  a  new  loan,  paying  for  it  at  the  market  price,  and  losing  for  the 
state  the  sum  by  which  the  market  price  exceeded  the  rate  of  issue — a  loss 
which  with  incidental  expenses  has  been  estimated  at  over  six  millions  and 
a  half — England  and  its  wise  ones  continued  to  believe  for  long  that  the 
National  Debt  was  being  cleared  off  by  a  schoolboy's  formula.  Another 
estimate  of  the  loss  incurred  puts  it  at  more  than  a  million  and  a  half  a 
year  for  many  years,  that  is,  up  to  1828,  when  the  delusion  was  finally 
overcome. 


182         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

poor — poor,  not  in  the  sense  of  cheerless  subsistence, 
but  in  that  of  grinding  indigence,  or  absolute  pauperism.* 
The  Old  House  Industry. — Formerly,  in  all  the 
more  prosperous  counties  of  England,  and  they  were 
the  majority,  there  had  been  great  numbers  of  cottagers 
who  united  agriculture  with  some  kind  of  handicraft 
within  doors.  The  irregularity  of  employment,  and  the 
uncertainty  of  results  attending  agriculture,  were 
balanced  by  constant  occupation  and  gains  obtained 
from  some  kind  of  manufacture,  which  was  generally 
of  a  textile  character.  Spinning  often  engaged  the 
whole  time  of  the  weaker  members  of  the  household, 
and  the  yarn  thus  produced  was  woven  into  cloth  by 
the  father  and  older  sons  when  nothing  was  to  be  done 
on  the  land.  In  the  woollen  manufacture,  which  was 
carried  on  under  somewhat  similar  circumstances  by 
small  masters  employing  a  few  journeymen  besides 
their  own  families,  business  was  conducted  so  soberly 
that  all  hands  enjoyed  a  similar  immunity  from  want  of 
occupation.  The  masters  neither  worked  for  orders 
nor  speculated  on  the  vicissitudes  of  the  market,  but 

*  Cowper,  who  was  well  acquainted  with  the  poor  of  Olney,  has  left 
us  a  pathetic  description  of  the  circumstances  of  a  respectable  labouring 
family  living  on  dry  brown  bread,  with  hardly  any  firing  or  candles — 

"  With  all  this  thrift  they  thrive  not.     All  the  care 
Ingenious  parsimony  takes,  but  just 
Saves  the  small  inventory,  bed  and  stool, 
Skillet,  and  old  carv'd  chest,  from  public  sale." 

In  Bums'  Cotter's  Saturday  Night  the  "  weel-hain'd  kebbuck,  fell,*'  was 
"a  towmond  auld,  sin'  lint  was  i'  the  bell."  To  foreigners,  however,  the 
country  presented  a  prosperous  appearance.  Alfieri,  for  example,  having 
in  early  life  passed  through  Portsmouth,  Salisbury,  Bath,  Bristol,  Oxford, 
to  London,  wrote  in  his  autobiography : — "II  paese  mi  piacque  molto,  e 
I'armonia  delle  cose  diverse,  tutte  concordanti  in  quell'  isola  al  maximo 
ben  di  tutti  m'  incant6  sempre  piu  fortemente."  As  to  artisans,  one  concrete 
instance  must  suffice.  The  journeymen  tailors  stated  that  their  wages 
between  1775  ^"^^  I79S  would  purchase  36  quartern  loaves  ;  in  1801  only 
18 J  loaves.     Other  classes  of  artisans  gave  similar  accounts. 


I 


INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  IN  ENGLAND    183 

produced  with  regularity  the  supply  which  sooner  or 
later  would  find  a  demand ;  and  the  men,  assured  of 
constant  employment,  and  treated  rather  as  partners 
than  as  day-labourers,  contentedly  worked  with  the 
same  manufacturers  for  years  in  succession,  and  ruefully 
regretted  their  imprudence  when  the  prospect  of  higher 
wages  tempted  them  to  enter  the  uncertain  service  of 
large  factories. 

Rise  of  the  Factory  System. — But  as  the  enter- 
prise of  capitalists,  the  introduction  of  machinery,  and 
minute  division  of  labour,  led  to  production  on  a  large 
scale,  this  primitive  system  was  superseded  by  factory 
organization.  The  safeguards  against  over-trading, 
erected  by  the  Statute  of  Apprentices  and  kindred 
legislation,  were  burst  through  and  finally  abolished. 
Customs  which  had  preserved  the  equilibrium,  at  the 
same  time  that  they  hindered  the  expansion,  of  indus- 
tries were  repudiated.  Labour  passed  from  under  the 
discipline  of  a  craft  to  dependence  on  speculating  entre- 
preneurs. Before  the  invention  of  the  steam  engine  the 
capitalist  generally  gathered  his  labourers  to  some  spot 
where  a  head  of  water  was  available.  With  the  advent 
of  steam-power,  the  factories  gravitated  towards  towns 
which  then  offered  paramount  advantages.  To  these 
towns  flocked  all  those  who  sought  to  earn  their  liveli- 
hood by  manufacturing  industry.  The  isolated  hand- 
worker and  the  small  master  in  the  country  were 
unable  to  compete  with  the  machinery  and  organized 
operatives  of  the  capitalist  in  the  town.  Their  only 
alternative  was  to  migrate  to  some  factory  centre. 
Here  they  became  tributary  to  the  capitalist,  with  no 
resource  but  their  single  craft,  dependent  for  bread  upon 
a  harsh  system  of  trade  which  was  subject  to  all  the 
fluctuations  of  a  world-wide  market. 

Enclosure  of  Commons. — As  the  handworker  left 


184         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

the  country,  the  country  changed  much  as  the  towns 
were  changed  by  his  arrival.  Capital  bought  up  the 
small  holdings  which  he  and  his  class  had  vacated ;  it 
annexed  those  which  might  otherwise  have  survived  the 
loss  of  manufacturing  employment,  and  it  enclosed  the 
wastes  which  had  greatly  helped  the  landless  men  to 
eke  out  a  contented  subsistence.  Those  cottagers 
whose  occupation  was  mainly  manufacturing  had 
already  migrated  into  the  towns  when  the  great  en- 
closing period  began.  Those  who  had  remained  in  the 
country  had  now  to  chose  whether  they  would  join  the 
operatives  of  the  factory,  or  descend  to  the  condition  of 
hinds.  What  they  suffered  by  losing  their  rights  of 
commonage  is  now  very  difficult  to  determine,  and  it 
certainly  varied  much  with  different  parishes.  It  would 
seem,  however,  that  while  the  enclosures  deprived  the 
day-labourer  of  a  solace,  often  of  a  resource,  they  com- 
pleted the  ruin  of  the  manufacturing  cottagers.* 

Decline  of  Small  Farming. — The  agricultural 
movement,  however,  proceeded  to  diminish  the  demand 
for  labour  by  turning  the  enclosed   arable  land   into 

*  "When  Arthur  Young  made  his  tours  he  gathered  all  available 
particulars  respecting  the  expenses  and  produce  of  cows.  After  tabulating 
the  details,  he  had  to  confess  that  it  was  extremely  mysterious,  but  that  he 
could  not  possibly  discover  wherein  lay  the  profit  of  dairying.  But  the 
fact  was,  as  the  cowkeepers  themselves  told  him,  that  cows  were  kept 
because  they  consumed  what  would  otherwise  be  useless.  At  that  time 
cow-keeping,  except  about  the  towns,  was  on  the  same  basis  that  poultry- 
keeping  and  pig-feeding  are  now.  It  was  a  by-industry,  conducted  by 
unmarketable  labour  on  land  which  bore  a  very  small  value  ;  and  the 
prices  got  by  this  practice  were  too  low  to  show  a  profit  if  the  expenses 
were  reckoned  in  terms  of  saleable  labour  and  rack-rented  land.  When 
wastes  and  commons,  grazing  rights  and  fallow  stubbles,  still  remained,  it 
was  literally  true  that  cows  were  generally  kept  to  consume  what  would 
otherwise  be  lost.  The  rural  system,  in  which  cow-keeping  assumed  the 
comfortable  aspect  of  a  by-industry,  departed  for  ever  along  with  the  wastes 
and  common  fields." — The  Progress  of  Agriculture^  and  the  Decline  of 
Small  Farmings  by  the  present  writer,  in  Westminster  Review^  1889. 


INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  IN  ENGLAND    185 

pasture ;  and  though  war  prices  caused  much  of  this 
to  be  broken  up  again,  wages  were  so  little  determined 
by  economic  laws  that  increased  employment  yielded 
little  compensation  for  famine  scarcity.  Moreover, 
the  landlords  and  farmers  denied  to  the  agricultural 
labourers  the  accommodation  which  naturally  should 
have  been  theirs  as  land  became  enclosed  and  rented. 
The  evidence  at  command  does  not  appear  to  support 
the  prevalent  view  that  loss  of  rights  of  commonage 
made  it  generally  impossible  to  maintain  small  farms 
and  freeholds.  But  in  order  to  reduce  the  upkeep  of 
buildings,  and  to  facilitate  the  collection  of  their  rents, 
proprietors  let  their  land  only  to  large  farmers,  and 
refused  to  accept  cottagers  as  tenants  for  a  few  acres. 
In  order  to  keep  a  better  command  of  labour,  the 
farmers  used  all  their  influence  to  prevent  their  men 
from  hiring  small  holdings.  Coleridge  was  thus  led  to 
reproach  the  landowners  with  dereliction  of  duty  in  his 
"Lay  Sermon  to  the  Higher  and  Middle  Classes."* 
At  this  time,  when  the  rigorous  subordination  of  labour 
to  capital  and  economical  organization  seemed  to  be  a 
short  cut  to  universal  plenty,  the  motives  of  landlords 
were  probably  more  public-spirited  than  a  spectator 
would  at  first  be  inclined  to  allow.  But  the  results  of 
their  conduct  were  those  of  the  narrowest  selfishness. 
Irresistibly,  the  labouring  population  of  England,  which 
in  its  worst  times  was  not  without  a  hope  of  mending 
what  was  bad  in  one  occupation  by  recourse  to  another, 
was  now  definitely  divided  into  a  town  proletariat  and 
a  degraded  peasantry. 

The  English  Poor-Law. — In  both  capacities  labour 

*  Coleridge  was  equally  distrustful  of  the  mercantile  spirit.  In  the 
DeviCs  Thoughts^  the  pig  seen  gliding  down  the  river  with  wind  and  tide, 
cutting  its  own  throat  the  while,  is  likened  to  England's  commercial 
prosperity. 


186         HISTORY  OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

was  delivered  into  the  bondage  of  an  unfair  treaty  with 
capital.  The  laws  against  combination,  the  traditions 
derived  from  the  days  of  the  assessment  of  wages,  the 
law  of  settlement,  and  the  impotency  of  hand  work, 
deprived  of  all  contractual  quality  the  relations  which 
followed.  And,  doubtless,  the  situation  would  have  been 
too  intolerable  to  last  if  some  mediating  agent  had  not 
mitigated  the  friction  of  the  labour  market.  Unfortu- 
nately, however,  the  buffer  between  wage-earners  and 
despair  only  defended  a  bad  order  by  making  it  more 
vicious  in  itself  and  more  demoralizing  to  the  people. 
The  Poor  Law,  which  originally  passed  from  exhortation 
to  compulsion,  had  lived  to  convert  charity  into  cajolery^ 
alms  into  hush-money.  Relief  of  the  destitute  had  come 
to  be  indemnity  to  the  underpaid,  and  the  poor-rate  had 
become  an  insurance  fund  against  rebellion  or  starvation 
of  the  labourers.  In  1782  the  Act  known  as  Gilbert's 
abolished  the  existing  workhouse  test,  which  since 
1723  had  prevented  in  many  instances  the  extravagant 
growth  of  pauperism.  This  Act,  reinforced  by  another 
passed  in  1796,  empowered  the  parish  authorities  to  give 
relief  to  any  industrious  person  at  his  own  home  without 
forfeiture  on  refusal  to  enter  the  poor  house.  Labour 
was  now  confessed  to  be  the  stipendiary  of  the  rates. 
Through  the  reluctance  of  employers  to  pay  reasonable 
wages,  labour  had  been  pauperized.  Through  the  same 
reluctance,  united  with  some  regard  for  humanity  *  and 
caution,  this  pauperism  was  favoured  to  the  disadvantage 

*  The  latest  and  most  learned  historian  of  this  industrial  period,  M. 
Paul  Mantoux,  indicates  the  European  significance  of  the  episode.  "  La 
seconde  moitie  du  xviii*  siecle  vit  se  relacher  beaucoup  la  severite  a  I'egard 
des  pauvres  :  on  reconnait  ici  Paction  de  ce  grand  courant  sentimental  qui 
a  exerce  una  si  profonde  influence  sur  la  pensee  europeenne.  La  misere 
cessa  d'etre  regardee  uniquement  comme  la  consequence  ordinaire  de 
rimprevoyance  et  du  vice,  et  ropinion  s'emut  a  I'idee  de  tant  de  souffrances 
immeritees." 


INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION   IN  ENGLAND    187 

of  industry,  thrift,  and  prudence.  Consequently,  em- 
ployers came  to  find  common  labour  slothful  and  clumsy, 
while  ratepayers  had  to  bear  a  tax  which  rose  from  being 
about  two  millions  in  1780  to  over  four  millions  in  1803, 
and  nearly  eight  millions  in  1817.  In  efficiency,  morals, 
and  money,  society  paid  a  heavy  price  for  the  temporary 
suppression  of  labour's  claims  to  equitable  and  worthy 
treatment.  Thus  the  founding  of  England's  industrial 
pre-eminence  was  accompanied  by  the  aggravation  of  a 
disease  which  has  not  yet  ceased  to  mar  and  disturb  its 
social  system. 

Machinery  and  Operatives. — The  condition  of 
those  engaged  in  the  fluctuating  industries  of  the  town 
was  much  less  influenced  by  the  poor  law  than  that  of 
the  regular  labourers  on  the  soil.  Nevertheless,  special 
causes  made  this  period  one  of  great  suffering  to  the 
manufacturing  population.  At  first,  increase  of  trade 
induced  transient  prosperity  among  operatives,  but 
troubles  surely  overtook  the  workmen  as  machines  sur- 
passed the  efforts  of  their  practised  hands.  As  the  rate 
of  production  was  accelerated,  the  market  did  not  at 
once  expand  in  a  corresponding  degree.  The  capitalist 
had  often  cause  for  impatience,  which  sometimes  was 
hasty  enough  to  make  him  send  a  cargo  of  skates  to  Rio 
Janeiro ;  but  sooner  or  later  the  reduced  price  of  his 
wares  opened  new  markets,  and  meanwhile  he  con- 
tinually found  opportunities  to  sell  at  great  advantage. 
But  the  arms  and  fingers  of  men  and  women  steadily 
declined  in  value  before  the  speed,  dexterity,  and  power 
of  machines.  Hand-workers  either  found  no  work  to  do, 
or  they  slaved  for  a  miserable  wage.  Mill  operatives 
secured  better  earnings  when  trade  was  brisk,  but  in  dull 
times  they  were  more  helpless  than  hand-workers.  No 
effective  competition  among  employers  insured  to 
workers  considerate  treatment,  and  the  law  made  penal 


188         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

all  attempts  at  combination.  We  hear  of  petitions 
against  machinery  as  early  as  1776;  Acts  for  its  pro- 
tection were  frequently  passed  ;  and  the  struggle  against 
it  was  maintained  far  into  the  nineteenth  century. 

High  Prices,  Leases,  and  Yearly  Tenancy. — But 
great  as  were  the  evils  inherent  in  the  industrial  tran- 
sition, they  were  hardly  more  intense  than  those  produced 
by  extraneous  circumstances.  The  recurrence  of  bad 
and  irregular  seasons,  from  1765  till  the  end  of  the  wars, 
repeatedly  forced  up  prices  far  beyond  the  utmost  point 
to  which  the  movement  of  wages  in  those  times  could 
reach.  And  while  high  prices  were  distressing  the 
manufacturing  population,  they  were  laying  up  less 
immediate  but  more  permanent  troubles  for  the  agricul- 
tural classes.  The  incentives  they  afforded  to  more 
energetic  and  extensive  cultivation  were  supported 
by  facilities  for  obtaining  loans  which  the  paper 
currency  provided.  The  number  of  country  banks 
increased  from  about  280  in  1797  to  above  900  in  18 13  ; 
and  so  boldly  did  they  aid  the  farmers  in  their  specula- 
tions that  at  the  close  of  the  war,  when  prices  fell  and 
agriculturists  experienced  great  losses,  no  less  than  240 
of  these  establishments  stopped  payment.  The  most 
lasting  consequence  of  this  period  of  inflated  agriculture 
was  the  consummation  of  a  change  in  English  land 
tenure  which  had  been  supervening  since  the  first  rise 
in  prices.  "  It  is  a  custom  growing  pretty  common  in 
several  parts  of  the  kingdom  to  grant  no  leases,"  said 
Arthur  Young  in  1770  ;  and  he  pointed  out  how  pre- 
judicial the  change  was  to  progressive  husbandry. 
Such  remonstrances  came  frequently  from  other  ob- 
servers. But  the  landlords  were  too  anxious  to  profit  by 
every  advance  in  prices  to  fix  their  rents  for  more  than  a 
year  at  a  time.  They  persisted  in  constantly  raising  rents 
from  year  to  year.     When  a  collapse  occurred  with  the 


INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  IN  ENGLAND    189 

return  of  peace,  and  a  period  of  great  fluctuations  ensued 
under  the  reign  of  the  corn-laws,  the  farmers  themselves 
were  unable  to  agree  to  pay  fixed  rackrents  for  more 
than  a  year  in  advance.  By  the  time  that  the  corn -laws 
departed,  the  new  system  was  firmly  established.  The 
"good  understanding  "  survives  to  this  day  ;  and  English 
husbandry  is  now  suffering  from  the  want  of  stamina 
and  resources,  induced  by  abolishing  the  class  of  sub- 
stantial and  improving  tenants. 

Decay  of  the  Yeomanry — The  same  influences  were 
mainly  instrumental  in  effecting  the  removal  of  the  more 
considerable  yeomanry,  who  had  lost  little  by  the  decline 
of  house  industry.  At  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century 
occupying  owners  were  still  very  numerous  in  most  parts 
of  England,  and  their  estates  were  subjected  to  the 
same  ordeal  as  the  business  of  the  tenant  farmers.  The 
yeomen  also  borrowed  money  for  speculative  farming  ; 
they  frequently  spent  it  on  the  purchase  of  additional 
land  at  high  prices  ;  they  often  yielded  to  the  temptation 
of  raising  their  style  of  living  as  they  saw  the  successful 
farmers  doing.  Some  sold  their  land  forthwith  at  a 
time  when  land-jobbing  was  very  active  and  uncircum- 
spect,  and  embarked  in  more  enterprising  trades,  or  in 
farming  on  a  large  scale.  The  greater  number,  how- 
ever, clave  to  their  estates,  and  involved  them  in  heavy 
charges,  and  themselves  in  extravagances.  The  fall  of 
prices  rendered  solvency  impossible,  and  life  intolerable 
to  most  of  them.  Their  lands  were  sold  to  the  great 
landowners,  or  to  wealthy  manufacturers  and  traders,  to 
be  consigned  to  the  custody  of  family  settlements, 
beyond  the  reach  o{  bond  fide  cultivators. 

Social  Effects  of  the  Industrial  Revolution. — From 
this  brief  sketch  it  is  evident  that  the  industrial 
revolution  changed  England's  social  system  as  funda- 
mentally and  extensively  as   any  political  movement 


190         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

has  changed  the  form  of  states.  The  vocation  of  the 
country  definitely  declared  itself.  Occupations,  which 
hitherto  had  been  pursued  only  to  complete  the 
economy  of  a  civilized  society,  were  now  erected  into 
pillars  of  the  integrity  and  prosperity  of  the  country. 
The  welfare  and  progress  of  the  nation  were  entrusted 
to  the  exertions  of  a  new  class.  Those  who  formerly 
had  been  the  basis  of  the  economical  structure  were 
now  degraded  into  members  of  an  industrial  organiza- 
tion, reaching  to  the  ends  of  the  world.  In  the  balance 
of  political  power,  the  new  order  imperatively  demanded 
corresponding  adjustments.  But  when  the  revolution 
commenced,  the  landed  interest  was  supreme  ;  when 
its  triumph  was  assured,  the  landlords  were  at  the 
zenith  of  their  wealth  and  influence.  Hence,  though 
the  parliamentary  organization  of  the  landed  proprietors 
was  broken  up  during  the  reign  of  George  III.,  the 
manufacturing  population  gained  political  representa- 
tion but  slowly.  The  revulsion  of  feeling,  produced  by 
events  on  the  Continent,  endured  long  after  its  occasion, 
and  retarded  most  disastrously  recognition  of  the 
democratic  element  proper  to  constitutional  govern- 
ment in  an  industrial  state. 

Industrialism  and  Political  Representation. — At 
first  industrialism  was  represented  exclusively  by  the 
capitalist  class.  Yet,  decided  as  the  antagonism  of 
capital  and  labour  has  grown  since  then,  the  masses 
participated  in  a  redistribution  of  moral  power,  if  not 
in  executive  authority.  Within  the  period  of  revolution, 
the  new  aspirant  to  a  share  in  government  had  but 
one  enemy,  the  conservative  landlords  ;  it  had  but  one 
party  object,  the  protection  of  the  majority.  While  the 
Whig  party  approved  of  the  pressure  of  public  opinion 
from  without  on  parliamentary  government,  but  with- 
stood any  proposals  for  a  modification  of  its  oligarchic 


INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  IN  ENGLAND    191 

constitution,  the  political  creed,  which  attained  articu- 
late expression  on  the  occasion  of  Wilkes'  contest  with 
the  House  of  Commons,  declared  in  favour  of  direct 
popular  representation  within.  As  soon  as  the  middle 
class  began  to  feel  its  strength,  it  naturally  maintained 
that  parliamentary  government  should  be  the  rule  of 
the  majority  through  their  delegates.  Thus,  to  corre- 
spond with  the  new  structure  of  the  Whig  party,  issued 
the  Liberalism  to  which  historians  agree  in  tracing 
modern  Radicalism.  From  the  Whigs,  as  we  have  seen, 
had  sprung  a  party  favourable  to  popular  government ; 
and  from  the  metropolitan  constituencies  and  great 
counties  were  sent  members  to  uphold  the  representa- 
tive character  of  the  Commons.  The  party  thus  formed 
was  not  considerable,  but  its  purpose  was  kept  before 
the  country  from  the  time  that  Chatham  gave  his 
adherence  to  a  measure  of  reform.  Under  the  brilliant 
conduct  of  Fox  the  cause  of  the  people  was  in  no  want 
of  effective  advocacy,  and  the  justice  of  its  claims  was 
maintained  by  the  younger  Pitt.  But  the  very  hopeful- 
ness of  the  movement  turned  to  its  disadvantage.  The 
growing  ardour  of  reformers  induced  the  formation  of 
leagues  to  prosecute  an  agitation  in  behalf  of  radical 
reform.  And  when  the  spectacle  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion confounded  in  men's  minds  the  thoughts  of  improve- 
ment and  anarchy,  these  societies  called  up  very  sinister 
associations,  and  heightened  the  general  dislike  to  in- 
novation. "  In  Britain,"  says  Wordsworth  of  this  time, 
"ruled  a  panic  dread  of  change."  From  the  Birming- 
ham mob  up  to  the  prime  minister  the  nation  was 
determined  at  all  costs  to  preserve  inviolate  the  existing 
order  of  Church  and  State.  Instead  of  discussion 
followed  proscription  ;  instead  of  agitation  followed  pro- 
secutions ;  in  place  of  reform  succeeded  Tory  inertia. 
To  the  great  misfortune  of  the  country,  industrialism 


192         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

was  cheated  for  more  than  a  generation  of  political  con- 
sideration commensurate  with  its  structural  importance 
in  the  groundwork  of  modern  England. 

Bentham's  Clear  Rule  of  Reform. — Nevertheless, 
though  the  industrial  revolution  failed  to  be  accom- 
panied by  appropriate  constitutional  reform,  it  was  at 
this  period  that  liberal  principles  received  such  state- 
ment and  illustration  as  secured  their  successful  applica- 
tion on  the  arrival  of  calmer  times.  Adam  Smith 
elaborated  a  doctrine  of  personal  and  industrial  liberty 
before  monopoly  and  protection  were  seriously  attacked. 
Jeremy  Bentham  explored  the  province  of  equitable 
legislation  when  Blackstone's  authority  was  paramount. 
The  work  of  the  first  writer  is  the  foundation  of  what 
economical  science  modern  Europe  has  called  to  its 
aid,  and  must,  therefore,  be  treated  as  a  separate  part 
of  its  groundwork.  The  teaching  of  Bentham,  however, 
so  far  as  it  was  systematic,  was  limited  by  the  bounds 
of  strict  jurisprudence,  and  his  detailed  theories 
addressed  themselves  only  to  lawyers.  But  the  wide- 
reaching  and  luminous  idea,  which  was  the  basis  of  all 
he  thought  and  wrote,  has  become  the  common  posses- 
sion of  all  civilized  men.  "  He  gave  us,"  said  Maine, 
"  a  clear  rule  of  reform."  Utility  had  been  a  recognized 
criterion  of  conduct  since  the  days  of  Epicurus  ;  and  in 
Bentham's  own  age  it  possessed  advocates  of  such 
repute  as  Beccaria,  Priestley,  and  Paley.  Yet  it  was 
Bentham  who  insisted,  once  for  all,  that  the  proper 
object  of  all  government  and  legislation  is  the  greatest 
happiness  of  the  greatest  number. 

Influence  of  Bentham's  School. — From  juris- 
prudence he  exorcised  the  spirits  of  superstition  and 
phantasy  by  ridicule  and  exact  investigation.  The 
widest  principles  and  the  meanest  details  were  alike  the 
subjects  of  his   rigorous   criticism.      Referring   always 


INDUSTRIAL  REVOLUTION  IN  ENGLAND    193 

to  the  greatest  happiness  of  man  under  the  conditions 
of  actual  human  feelings  and  needs,  he  elucidated 
principles  of  legislation,  rules  of  procedure,  and  details 
of  practice,  which  in  all  their  features  and  circumstances 
enforced  conformity  with  a  rigid  test  of  utility.  Thanks 
to  the  help  of  Dumont  and  other  collaborators,  the 
principle  with  its  chief  corollaries  soon  became  familiar 
on  the  Continent  and  in  England  and  America.  Axioms, 
which  are  now  the  immediate  intuitions  of  educated 
men  of  all  nations,  were  once  truths  newly  demonstrated 
by  Bentham's  logical  method. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  NEW  MECHANICS:  THE  NEW  ECONOMICS 

"Primo  itaque  videtur  inventorum  nobilium  introductio  inter 
actiones  humanas  longe  primas  partes  tenere  :  id  quod  antiqua 
saecula  judicaverunt.  Ea  enim  rerum  inventoribus  divinos  honores 
tribuerunt ;  iis  autem,  qui  in  rebus  civilibus  merebantur  (quales 
erant  urbium  et  imperiorum  conditores,  legislatores,  patriarum  a 
diuturnis  malis  liberatores,  tyrannidum  debellatores,  et  his  similes), 
heroum  tantum  honores  decreverunt.  Atque  certe,  si  quis  ea  recte 
conferat,  justum  hoc  prisci  saeculi  judicium  reperiet.  Etenim  in- 
ventorum beneficia  ad  universum  genus  humanum  pertinere  possunt, 
civilia  ad  certas  tantummodo  hominum  sedes :  hasc  etiam  non 
ultra  paucas  aetates  durant,  ilia  quasi  perpetuis  temporibus." — 
Novum  Organum. 

"  On  the  whole,  man  is  a  tool-using  animal.  Nowhere  do  you 
find  him  without  tools  ;  without  tools  he  is  nothing,  with  tools  he 
is  all." — Carlyle. 

"  The  nutrition  of  a  commonwealth  consisteth  in  the  plenty  and 
distribution  of  materials  conducing  to  life.  .  .  .  Plenty  dependeth, 
next  to  God's  favour,  merely  on  the  labour  and  industry  of  man." 
— HOBBES. 

The  Machine  Age. — The  means  and  success  with 
which  man  has  at  different  times  encountered  the 
difficulties  of  making  Nature  subservient  to  his  desires 
are  among  the  most  important  elements  of  his  history. 
And  doubtless  they  would  occupy  a  more  prominent 
position  in  historical  narrative  if  written  history  were 
not  under  the  necessity  of  eliminating  as  many  constant 
quantities  as  possible,  and  this  particular  quantity  had 
not  remained  for  ages  in  succession  one  of  the  most 
constant.     But  when  our  own  time  is  approached,  the 

194 


THE  NEW  MECHANICS  195 

old  lines  of  historical  construction  are  interrupted  ;  the 
constant  becomes  the  scene  of  rapid  change,  the  estab- 
lished the  victim  of  revolution.  Especially  is  this  the 
case  with  the  conditions  of  man's  conflict  with  his 
physical  environment.  Since  the  middle  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  changes  have  come  to  pass  which  have 
made  civilized  man  rather  Nature's  conqueror  than  its 
drudge  and  prey.  As  certain  stages  of  primitive  civili- 
zation are  wont  to  be  distinguished  by  palaeontologists 
according  to  the  material  from  which  tools  were  made, 
so  the  present  age  may  be  characterized  by  the  com- 
plexity of  their  structure.  Whereas  once  the  materials 
of  which  tools  were  made  sufficed  for  their  classification, 
now  the  number  of  substances  and  multitude  of  parts 
constituting  modern  appliances  permit  them  to  be 
generally  described  only  as  complex,  or  machines ;  and 
our  epoch  may  justly  be  called  the  machine  age. 

Machinery  and  History. — Yet  it  would  be  wrong 
to  suppose  that  in  past  times  men  had  not  essayed  to 
contrive  apparatus  for  sparing  and  reinforcing  their 
labour.  Many  were  the  inventions  necessary  to  equip 
society  before  the  era  of  machinery ;  a  few  engines  of 
great  utility  and  ingenuity  had  been  produced,  and 
several  attempts  to  anticipate  the  main  contrivances  of 
our  time  are  recorded.  Failure,  indeed,  to  impart  to 
tools  a  high  degree  of  organization  was  due  not  so 
much  to  feebleness  of  individuals  as  to  the  unprepared 
state  of  society.  While  an  age  abounding  in  a  talent 
affords  a  rich  field  for  its  employment,  an  age  poor  in  a 
power  is  incapable  of  realizing  even  that  which  it  has. 
Herein  lies  one  reason  why  the  general  progress  of 
society  is  not  more  steady  and  less  intermittent ;  but 
the  art  of  making  and  using  tools  is  especially  subject 
to  sudden  advances  and  protracted  delays.  There  is 
nothing  so  likely  to  remain  in  a  stationary  condition  as 


196         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

tools,  and  there  is  nothing  equally  quick  to  advance 
when  a  fertile  discovery  has  been  compassed.  In 
favourable  circumstances,  tools  propagate  tools  with 
wonderful  directness  and  speed ;  and  it  is  on  this 
account  that  modern  technological  progress  has  been 
rapid  and  portentous  beyond  example. 

Watt's  Double-acting  Steam-engine. — The  early 
history  of  the  reciprocating  steam-engine  especially 
illustrated  this  truth.  Many  years  passed,  and  many 
disappointments  were  experienced,  before  Watf  s  ideas 
were  successfully  realized.  Details  of  execution  con- 
tinually made  further  demands  on  his  inventive  powers ; 
but  he  would  not  have  grudged  the  intense  application 
necessary  to  render  the  machine  powerful  and  auto- 
matic if  he  had  not  been  harassed  by  the  difficulty  of 
getting  the  mechanism  executed,  and  by  the  indebted- 
ness which  his  slender  pecuniary  resources  made  un- 
avoidable if  he  was  to  remain  true  to  his  purpose.  In 
those  days  accurate  workmanship  did  not  exist.  Artisans 
used  rude  tools  for  rough  work ;  and  Watt's  ideas 
entirely  outstripped  their  means  of  construction,  while 
his  designs  were  frequently  curtailed  to  suit  the  capacity 
of  those  who  would  have  to  manage  his  engines. 
Against  these  obstacles  the  delicate  inventor  would 
probably  have  struggled  in  vain,  unless  he  had  received 
from  others  moral  and  material  support — support  which, 
at  that  time,  he  could  have  obtained  in  no  country  of 
the  world  except  Great  Britain.  From  Dr.  Black,  from 
Dr.  Roebuck,  and  Matthew  Boulton  he  obtained  the 
encouragement  and  means  necessary  for  the  develop- 
ment of  his  plans  till  they  were  in  a  fit  state  to  meet 
the  demands  of  the  world.  And  then,  again,  only  in 
the  same  country  could  he  and  his  partner  have  found, 
at  that  time,  an  immediate  and  expanding  market  for 
the  new  engine  when  it  was  ready  for  work. 


THE  NEW  MECHANICS  197 

Rapid  Success  of  the  Steam-engine. — As  soon 
as  the  merits  of  Watt's  engines  were  demonstrated,  a 
great  demand  for  their  services  came  from  the  mine- 
owners.  Shafts,  which  were  about  to  be  abandoned, 
were  worked  with  renewed  activity ;  old  works,  which 
had  ceased  to  be  remunerative,  were  revived ;  new 
mines,  which  otherwise  would  have  failed,  were  success- 
fully opened  ;  and  all  manner  of  pumping  was  performed 
with  greater  economy.  To  meet  the  wants  of  other 
industries  Watt  applied  his  engine  to  the  production  of 
rotary  motion  ;  and  he  invented  his  centrifugal  governor 
for  regulating  velocity,  which,  with  the  flywheel,  origin- 
ally designed  to  overcome  the  dead  points,  ensured 
smoothness  of  movement  and  uniformity  of  speed  in 
the  execution  of  all  kinds  of  work.  Steam  power 
immediately  passed  from  being  an  auxiliary  of  the 
pump  to  being  the  motor  of  mills,  bellows,  tilt-hammers, 
and  the  machines  in  textile  factories.* 

Progress  of  the  Mineral  Industries. — The  ex- 
tensive use  of  motor  machinery  involved  a  large  con- 
sumption of  metal  and  fuel.     The  engines  themselves 

*  The  old  motors,  too,  experienced  the  influence  of  mechanical  pro- 
gress. Both  wind-  and  water-mills  were  greatly  improved  during  the 
second  half  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Indeed,  millwrights  were  the  class 
which  possessed  most  mechanical  aptitude,  and  produced  most  of  the 
pioneers  of  modern  engineering.  Water-mills  were  especially  improved 
by  scientific  investigation,  to  which  Smeaton  made  considerable  contribu- 
tions. And  water-pressure  engines  were  at  work  on  the  Continent  as  early 
as  1750,  the  first  being  erected  by  Winterschmidt  in  the  Harz  mountains, 
and  the  second  by  HoU  at  Schemnitz,  in  Hungary,  for  pumping  purposes. 
It  is  probable  that  this  was  "  the  new  invented  water  engine"  which  Mr. 
Arthur  Rogers  has  found  among  the  investments  of  an  adventurer  in 
South  Sea  Bubbles  {History  of  Prices^  vii.  609),  for  it  is  known  to 
have  existed  in  France  in  an  incipient  form  as  early  as  1731.  The  idea 
may  well  have  originated  many  years  earlier,  and  its  picture  would  certainly 
have  taken  the  form  of  a  pump.  In  this  case  it  ceases  to  "suggest  the 
fraudulent  promoter,"  and  shares  "the  plausible  appearance"  which  so 
many  of  the  bubbles  possessed. 


198         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

were  principally  constructed  of  iron,  and  their  gearing 
became  more  efficient  and  durable  as  metal  superseded 
wood.  Their  furnaces  required  a  large  supply  of  coal, 
and  so  did  the  blast  works  and  foundries  which  pro- 
duced their  constituent  materials.  In  some  degree 
steam  power  afforded  the  means  of  meeting  its  demand 
for  minerals  by  facilitating  the  processes  of  mining  and 
smelting.  Its  application  to  pumps,  bellows,  and  rollers 
greatly  promoted  the  output  of  coal  and  iron,  and  in- 
creased the  net  produce  from  the  raw  material.  But 
the  growth  of  the  mineral  industries  was  more  the  effect 
of  prior  causes.  If  British  methods  of  extracting  cast 
iron,  malleable  iron,  and  steel,  from  the  ores,  had  not 
already  been  otherwise  improved,  the  steam-engine 
would  hardly  have  escaped  being  an  abortive  invention. 
Smelting,  puddling,  and  rolling  Iron.— Although 
the  English  ironworks  suffered  considerably  in  the 
civil  war,  the  fundamental  cause  of  their  decline  was 
want  of  fuel.  The  great  consumption  of  charcoal  had 
destroyed  most  of  the  available  woods,  and  occasioned 
legislative  prohibitions  against  the  erection  of  furnaces. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  Abraham 
Darby  founded  the  ironworks  of  Coalbrookdale,  for  the 
purpose  of  manufacturing  cast-iron  wares,  which  had 
hitherto  been  obtained  from  abroad ;  and  it  was  in  this 
establishment  that  the  use  of  coke  gradually  superseded 
the  employment  of  charcoal  for  smelting  purposes.  It 
was  here,  too,  that  in  1766  the  process  of  converting 
pig-iron  into  malleable  iron  was  first  accomplished  by 
means  of  coal  in  a  reverberatory  furnace.  A  true 
puddling  furnace,  however,  was  patented  by  Onions,  of 
Merthyr  Tydvil,  in  1783 ;  and  in  the  following  year 
Henry  Cort  took  out  his  patent  for  improvements, 
which  definitely  reorganized  the  whole  economy  of  the 
manufacture.     Without  originating  any  entirely  novel 


THE  NEW  MECHANICS  199 

process,  he  arrived  at  the  modern  English  method  of 
manufacturing  malleable  and  bar  iron  by  systematizing 
and  improving  known  processes  and  inventions,  and  by 
applying  the  rolling  mill  to  the  forging  of  bar  iron. 

Davy's  Mining  Safety-Lamp. — The  remaining 
notable  cause  of  increased  mineral  production  came 
from  without  the  circle  of  reciprocating  agents, 
steam,  coal,  and  iron.  Before  1815  no  efficient  means 
of  lighting  coal  mines  had  been  discovered  which 
did  not  involve  the  presence  of  heat  sufficient  to 
explode  fire-damp.  For  more  than  a  century  the  pits 
had  reached  a  depth  at  which  fire-damp  was  found  in 
dangerous  quantities.*  But  the  most  careful  and 
ingenious  ventilation  was  ineffectual  to  prevent  frequent 
accumulations  of  the  gas  ;  and  in  the  first  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century  a  series  of  murderous  catastrophes 
appealed  to  those  who  pursued  knowledge  to  provide 
the  miner  with  a  safeguard  against  the  most  formidable 
of  his  many  dangers.  As  the  demand  for  coal  increased, 
and  mining  became  more  developed,  many  experimenters 
endeavoured  to  construct  a  safety  lamp..  It  was  Davy, 
however,  who  first  succeeded  in  inventing  and  perfect- 
ing the  wire-gauze  lantern,  which,  under  ordinary 
circumstances,  afforded  complete  security  from  explo- 
sions.f  Davy,  with  noble  liberality,  claimed  none  of 
the  great  remuneration  which  a  patent  would  have 
secured  to  him.  Yet  the  coal-masters  could  well  have 
afforded  to  pay  him  a  large  premium,  for  the  lamp 
permitted  mines  to  be  worked  profitably  which  either 
had  been  abandoned  or  must  otherwise  soon  have  been 
closed,  and  it  rendered  available  for  the  market  a  great 
quantity  of  coal  which  had  been  left  in  the  mines  to 

♦  The  first  explosion  in  the  collieries  on  the  Tyne  occurred  in  October, 

1705- 

t  George  Stephenson  very  nearly  anticipated  him. 


200         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

guide  ventilating  currents.  But  Davy  was  sufficiently- 
gratified  by  receiving  from  the  north-country  mine- 
owners  a  handsome  honorary  token  of  their  obligations. 

Cast  Steel  as  Tool  Steel. — Besides  an  abundance 
of  raw  material,  the  construction  and  development  of 
machinery  required  tools  of  great  precision  and  power. 
In  one  respect  this  need  had  been  anticipated.  The 
first  condition  of  accurate  workmanship  in  metal  is  the 
employment  of  cutting  tools  competent  to  execute  their 
tasks  with  ease  and  rapidity.  It  was,  therefore,  a  gain 
of  no  small  moment  to  the  early  British  engineers  that 
they  found  ready  to  their  hands  a  supply  of  the  steel 
which,  till  the  appearance  of  our  present  high-speed 
tool  steels,  proved  to  be  that  most  suitable  for  working 
other  metals.  In  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
Benjamin  Huntsman  had  discovered  the  means  of  pro- 
ducing crucible  cast  steel  of  the  same  kind  and  by  the 
same  method  which  obtain  at  this  day.  By  his  in- 
vestigations the  conversion  of  blister  steel  into  cast 
ingots  through  vehement  heat  was  originated  in  every 
essential  detail  of  its  delicate  process.  From  his  own 
experiments  alone  he  discovered  the  iron,  fuel,  furnace, 
crucibles,  and  treatment  proper  for  the  purpose ;  and  by 
his  own  energy  he  created  a  market  for  the  stubborn 
product  by  first  selling  it  to  the  French. 

Want  of  Efficient  Tools. — But  the  best  simple 
tools  could  not  alone  turn  out  accurate  work.  To  con- 
struct the  new  machines  well  and  readily,  other  machines 
were  necessary ;  and  their  total  absence  was  the  cause 
of  much  tedious  toil  and  embarrassment  to  the  first  in- 
ventors. At  the  beginning,  Watt  was  unable  to  get  a 
serviceable  cylinder  bored  at  all.  For  long  his  chief 
concern  was  to  have  the  parts  of  his  engine  constructed 
with  such  amount  of  accuracy  as  enabled  a  special 
agent,  like  Murdoch,  to  make  the  machine  work  where 


THE   NEW   MECHANICS  201 

it  was  wanted.  He  sought  to  create  manual  dexterity 
by  restricting  to  certain  individuals  and  their  children 
certain  kinds  of  work ;  but  hand  labour  was  neither 
sufficiently  uniform,  accurate,  nor  powerful  to  make 
engine-fitting  under  any  circumstances  anything  but  a 
lengthy  and  anxious  business.  The  same  drawbacks 
attended  the  manufacture  of  all  other  kinds  of  machinery. 
To-  enable  machines  to  realize  their  capabilities,  they 
required  to  be  constructed  with  the  same  resources  that 
they  supplied ;  they  demanded,  in  fact,  to  be  made  by 
machine  tools. 

Development  of  Machine  Tools. — This  was  a 
want  which  contained  within  itself  the  means  of  its  own 
satisfaction.  The  class  of  men  who  laboured  for  the 
perfection  of  primary  machines  were  not  slow  to  devise 
auxiliaries.  Soon  the  rude  lathes  and  boring  apparatus 
of  the  old  smiths  and  millwrights  were  supplanted  by 
machine  tools  which  performed  their  required  work 
with  the  precision  of  automata  and  the  power  of  steam. 
Various  shifts  and  expedients  were  adopted  by  each 
shop  for  its  own  benefit,  and  the  factory  of  Boulton  and 
Watt  at  Soho  depended  entirely  upon  its  own  tools  and 
organization.  But  in  Bramah's  shop  the  manufacture 
of  his  tumbler  locks  induced  special  attention  to  exact 
and  uniform  work.  There  were  afforded  instruction 
and  incitement  to  mechanical  improvement  which 
resulted  in  the  hydraulic  press,  and  in  the  important 
inventions  of  Maudslay  and  Clement  for  turning  by  the 
slide  rest,  punching  boiler  plates,  cutting  screws,  and 
engine  planing,  with  their  various  applications.  The 
attainment  of  these  objects  was  also  aimed  at,  and 
often  partially  compassed,  in  workshops  of  less  celebrity. 
The  same  wants  elicited  like  expedients  from  men 
trained  to  the  same  work.  Throughout  the  works  of 
mechanical  engineers  the  principal  machine  tools  were 


202         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

either  invented,  improved,  or  eagerly  adopted.  By  the 
first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  main  ap- 
pliances of  engine  work  were  in  use,  and  only  awaited 
the  forgings  of  the  steam  hammer  to  proceed  to 
operations  of  greater  magnitude. 

Cause  of  England's  Mechanical  Advance, — The 
development  of  steam-power  and  the  iron  industries 
was  from  one  point  of  view  merely  the  exploitation  of 
England's  physical  resources.  From  another  point  of 
view  it  was  a  natural  consequence  of  England's  past 
social  advance.  Though  abundance  and  convenient 
distribution  of  minerals  are  highly  favourable  to  excel- 
lence in  working  metals,  they  were  not  alone  sufficient 
to  produce  the  industrial  phenomena  of  our  age.  In 
France,  for  example,  the  iron  trade  was  slow  to  profit 
by  English  improvements,  suitable  though  much  of  the 
French  iron  country  was  for  the  new  system.  Here 
government  incited  manufacturers  to  adopt  British 
methods,  and  published  a  description  of  the  various 
processes  ;  yet  "in  1818  only  a  very  small  quantity  of 
cast-iron  was  made  with  coke,  and  no  wrought  iron  was 
prepared  with  coal,"  and  the  production  of  both  kinds 
had  not  materially  increased  since  1801.  Nor  was  this 
result  entirely  due  to  the  difficulties  of  assimilating  a 
foreign  process,  for  the  charcoal  blast  furnaces  were 
managed  at  the  same  time  in  a  most  incompetent 
fashion.  But  in  England,  society  was  fully  ripe  for 
industrial  advance ;  economical  matters  had  become 
main  subjects  of  national  interest ;  and  it  was  this 
circumstance  rather  than  the  island's  mineral  wealth 
which  caused  the  new  departure.  In  point  of  fact,  the 
third  great  English  manufacture,  that  of  cotton  goods, 
was  an  exotic,  and  its  naturalization  was  achieved 
before  coal  and  iron  constituted  the  foundation  of  our 
industrial  economy. 


THE   NEW   MECHANICS  203 

Cotton-spinning  Machinery. — A  method  of  spin- 
ning by  rollers  was  invented  as  early  as  1738.  The 
idea  retained  vitality  for  the  next  thirty  years,  and 
probably  the  famous  water-frame  was  its  lineal  descen- 
dant. Nevertheless,  it  was  not  till  1769  that  Arkwright 
patented  his  machine  for  spinning  by  passing  the  roving 
of  cotton  between  two  pairs  of  cylinders  revolving  at 
different  speeds,  in  order  to  reduce  the  thread  to  the 
proper  tenuity  for  it  to  be  twisted  by  a  spindle  and 
wound  on  a  bobbin.  Arkwright's  water-frame  proved 
to  be  most  suitable  for  spinning  a  hard,  strong  thread 
for  warp;  and  it  was  an  opportune  coincidence  that, 
some  years  before  it  was  patented,  a  machine  had  been 
invented  by  another  person  for  spinning  cotton-thread 
sufficiently  fine  and  soft  for  weft.  This  was  the  original 
spinning-jenny  of  Hargreaves,  which  was  really  a  com- 
pound spinning-wheel  capable  of  producing  a  number 
of  threads  at  a  time.  The  manufacture  by  machinery 
of  the  material  of  entire  cotton  goods  was  now  made 
practicable ;  but  invention  did  not  stop  here.  Neither 
of  these  engines  spun  thread  fit  for  the  finer  kinds  of 
fabrics,  and  it  was  only  by  a  combination  of  the  two 
in  Crompton's  mule  that  this  end  was  attained.  While 
the  mule  superseded  the  jenny,  the  water-frame  retained 
its  position  on  account  of  the  demand  for  strong  warp 
when  the  power-loom  came  into  use  ;  and,  after  ex- 
periencing several  improvements,  its  name — which  no 
longer  answered  to  the  usual  means  of  motive  power — 
was  changed  into  throstle.  Through  these  inventions 
and  sundry  minor  ones,  yarn  which  cost  38^.  in  1786 
was  sold  in  1806  for  ys.  2d.,  and  in  1832  for  2s.  iid.; 
and  the  spinner,  instead  of  retarding  the  weaver  as 
formerly,  supplied  him  with  a  superabundance  of 
material  for  his  former  cloths,  and  all  manner  of  lighter 
fabrics  besides. 


204         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

The  Power-loom. — But  the  looms  did  not  long 
remain  behind  the  frames  and  jennies.  The  rapid  pro- 
duction of  yarn  gave  warning  that  more  expeditious 
means  of  weaving  would  soon  be  necessary ;  and  the 
success  of  spinning  and  other  machinery  gave  assur- 
ance that  machine-weaving  was  not  impossible.  It  was 
these  considerations,  indeed,  which  induced  a  clergy- 
man, Dr.  Cartwright,  unacquainted  with  mechanics  and 
the  process  of  hand-weaving,  to  devise  an  apparatus 
which  was  ultimately  developed  by  himself  and  others 
into  the  power-loom.  Cartwright  took  out  his  patent 
in  1787.  Nevertheless,  some  time  elapsed  before  power- 
looms  became  economically  successful,  and  hand-weav- 
ing long  remained  common.  In  France,  too,  about  this 
period,  Jacquard  invented  a  loom  to  aid  the  textile 
industries  of  Lyons.  By  this  engine  the  warp  was 
automatically  raised  and  lowered,  according  to  the 
requirements  of  a  preconceived  pattern  recorded  by 
perforations  on  an  endless  chain  of  slips  of  cardboard  ; 
and  it  became  as  useful  in  the  manufacture  of  figured 
silks  or  Kidderminster  carpets  as  the  power-loom  was 
in  weaving  cottons. 

Chemical  Bleaching. — To  remove  the  last  hindrance 
to  the  rapid  production  of  cotton  goods,  the  process  of 
bleaching  vegetable  cloth,  which  formerly  occupied  six 
or  eight  months,  was  abridged  by  the  use  of  chlorine 
and  lime  till  it  was  performed  in  two  or  three  days. 
Scheele  having  noticed  the  power  of  oxy muriatic  acid, 
as  it  was  then  called,  to  destroy  vegetable  colours, 
Berthollet  pointed  out  its  use  for  bleaching  purposes, 
and  the  discovery  was  applied  by  Watt,  Tennant,  and 
others  in  England. 

Historical  Significance  of  the  New  Chemical 
Industries.— The  use  of  chlorine  in  manufactures  was 
one  of  the  applications  of  chemical  knowledge  which 


THE  NEW  MECHANICS  205 

marked  the  origin  of  a  new  branch  of  industry.  The 
significance  of  such  an  innovation  is  not  exhausted  by 
the  fact  that  a  piece  of  cloth  could  be  bleached  at  home 
in  a  few  days,  which  formerly  was  bleached  in  Holland 
at  fifteen  times  the  cost.  Its  true  import,  rather,  was 
the  nascent  development  of  an  economy  of  chemical 
manufactures,  which  has  attained  the  rank  of  an  im- 
portant system  of  industries.  And  this  development 
took  place  in  England,  not  because  the  original  dis- 
coveries were  made  by  Englishmen.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  only  important  discovery  made  in  this  country- 
was  Roebuck's  method  of  manufacturing  sulphuric  acid 
at  a  low  cost.  In  our  own  time  the  investigations  of 
an  Englishman  have  enabled  Germany  to  build  up  an 
enormous  and  lucrative  trade  in  aniline  dyes  because 
technological  progress  had  prepared  Germans  to  avail 
themselves  of  such  scientific  advance.  In  the  days  of 
which  we  treat,  the  discoveries  and  inventions  of  men 
of  all  nationalities  enabled  England  to  start  the  alkali 
trade  and  other  commanding  industries  simply  because 
its  inhabitants  at  that  time  alone  possessed  the  skill, 
enterprise,  and  appliances  for  putting  to  good  service 
every  technological  advance  gained  by  the  researches 
of  the  civilized  world. 

Development  of  the  Alkali  Trades.— Formerly 
the  potash  and  soda  used  to  manufacture  soap,  glass, 
etc.,  were  obtained  from  the  ashes  of  plants  and  sea- 
weed, while  the  main  bleaching  agents  were  exposure 
and  sour  milk.  During  the  Revolution  the  importation 
of  soda  into  France  ceased,  and  the  Convention  appointed 
a  committee  to  consider  means  for  obtaining  it  from 
indigenous  sources.  It  was  then  found  that  Leblanc  was 
in  possession  of  a  method  of  manufacture  which  was 
based  on  the  decomposition  of  chloride  of  sodium  or  com- 
mon salt  by  sulphuric  acid  in  an  ordinary  reverberatory 


206         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

furnace,  by  which  were  formed  sulphate  of  sodium 
and  hydrochloric  acid.  At  first  the  hydrochloric  acid 
gas,  which  was  given  off  with  the  sulphate  of  sodium, 
was  discharged  into  the  air  to  poison  all  animal  and 
vegetable  life  in  the  neighbourhood.  Ultimately  its 
condensation  in  water  became  sanitarily  necessary  and 
obligatory  by  law.  But  here  the  alkali  trade  came 
into  connection  with  the  bleaching  industry.  The  most 
economical  method  of  obtaining  chlorine  is  by  the 
action  of  hydrochloric  acid  on  peroxide  of  manganese, 
and  thus  the  waste  product  from  the  first  process  of 
soda-making  came  to  provide  the  basis  of  the  manu- 
facture of  bleach.  The  growth  of  this  system  of  in- 
dustries, perfected  as  it  has  been  by  continual  saving 
of  labour  and  products,  is  a  notable  phenomenon  in  the 
economical  history  of  England  and  in  a  smaller  degree 
of  Europe.  The  war  and  the  taxes  on  salt  and  soap 
prevented  Leblanc's  process  from  obtaining  immediate 
adoption  in  this  island,  but  after  the  repeal  of  the  former 
duty,  the  alkali  trade  developed  with  great  rapidity. 
Soda,  which  in  1814  cost  £60  per  ton,  was  obtainable 
fifty  years  afterwards  at  £4.  10s.  per  ton ;  bleaching 
powder,  which  was  worth  about  ;^ioo  per  ton  at  the 
beginning  of  the  century,  fetched  in  the  middle  about 
£1 1  per  ton ;  while  sulphuric  acid  (the  consumption  of 
which  provides  for  wise  statesmen  an  index-number  to 
the  condition  of  industry  generally)  passed  in  the  course 
of  a  hundred  and  thirty  years  from  ;^I28  to  £6  per  ton. 
The  Steam  Printing-press. — In  two  other  great 
industrial  improvements  the  tendency  of  England's 
social  condition  to  favour  mechanical  progress  was 
especially  apparent.  The  inventors  of  printing  and 
paper-making  machines  were  foreigners ;  but  it  was 
only  English  capital,  enterprise,  and  needs,  which  at 
this  time  were  capable   of  bringing  their   ideas   to   a 


THE  NEW  MECHANICS  207 

practical  test.  Konig,  the  contriver  of  the  first  steam 
printing-press,  was  a  German,  who  had  striven  vainly  to 
obtain  means  to  make  experiments  in  his  own  country. 
He  repaired  to  England  only  after  he  had  proved  that 
he  would  find  no  better  encouragement  in  Russia. 
Established  in  London,  he  soon  discovered  a  printer 
who  was  induced  by  the  prospect  of  commercial  advan- 
tages to  furnish  funds  for  a  trial  press.  The  attempt 
suggested  a  more  elaborate  scheme ;  and  with  the 
assistance  of  a  countryman  possessed  of  much  mechani- 
cal skill,  Konig  at  length  produced  a  steam-driven 
machine,  which  has  been  the  parent  of  all  rapid  printing- 
presses. 

The  Paper-making  Machine. — The  paper-making 
machine  was  the  invention  of  Louis  Robert,  a  clerk  in 
Didot's  factory  at  Essonne.  The  Frenchman  was  more 
fortunate  than  Konig,  for  Gamble,  Didot's  brother-in- 
law,  undertook  to  patent  the  invention  and  get  it 
perfected  in  England.  Gamble  secured  the  assistance 
of  the  firm  of  Fourdrinier  in  the  venture,  and  by 
exhausting  their  resources,  the  invention  was  embodied 
in  a  practical  machine,  though  not  before  the  patent  had 
ceased  to  confer  any  benefit.  The  appliances  of  the 
old  paper-making  industry  had  experienced  little  im- 
provement since  the  introduction  of  the  art  into  Europe. 
Robert's  machine  produced  sheets  of  unlimited  length 
and  great  width,  and  with  such  economy  of  labour  and 
time  that  the  work  of  weeks  now  occupied  minutes.  In 
the  seventeenth  century  England's  supply  of  paper 
came  chiefly  from  abroad  ;  in  the  next  century  home 
production  hardly  equalled  consumption.  By  the  use 
of  Robert's  invention  England  competed  successfully 
with  other  countries,  and  came  to  import  the  raw 
material  in  large  quantities.  Machine-made  paper  was 
the  counterpart  to  steam-printing  among  the  mechanical 


208         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

causes  of  more  diffused  information  and  intelligence. 
Its  cheapness  countervailed  to  some  extent  the  injurious 
effects  of  the  paper  duties,  and  its  great  lengths  made 
possible  still  more  rapid  printing. 

Moral  Characteristics  of  the  great  Inventors 
and  Engineers. — The  foregoing  inventions  were  the 
chief  agents  in  the  introduction  of  modern  machinery. 
Attended  by  minor  contrivances  and  improvements, 
they  established  a  system  of  industrial  production  which 
rapidly  imposed  itself  over  all  the  efforts  of  civilized 
men  to  obtain  necessaries  and  gratifications.  For  the 
most  part  they  were  primarily  the  work  of  men  who 
desired  to  apply  their  abilities  to  alleviating  labour 
and  want  rather  than  to  amassing  wealth  and  minister- 
ing to  luxury.  They  resulted  from  constructive  instincts 
united  to  a  manly  desire  to  execute  thoroughly  well 
the  tasks  which  genius  prompted.  Among  the  great 
mechanical  inventors,  Arkwright  alone  manifested  the 
talents  and  passion  for  organizing  the  labour  of  others 
to  his  own  advantage.  Boulton,  who  made  of  Watt's 
invention  a  commercial  success,  possessed  great  business 
abilities,  but  they  ministered  solely  to  a  delight  in 
industrial  generalship.  Roebuck,  who  at  an  earlier 
period  was  the  guardian  of  the  embryo  engine,  also 
essayed  to  organize  industry  on  a  large  scale,  but  his 
dominant  motive  was  the  practical  application  of 
scientific  knowledge.  When  more  original  inventors 
engaged  in  manufacturing  enterprises,  they  did  so  in 
order  to  bring  their  work  to  perfection,  and  accordingly 
they  experienced  the  losses  which  invention  as  a  rule 
involved.  Nor  was  it  otherwise  with  those  who  con- 
ducted the  great  operations  which  gave  modern  England 
its  first  canals,  roads,  harbours,  docks,  and  bridges. 
These  invented  civil  engineering  as  truly  as  inventors 
originated  mechanical  engineering.     They  were  likewise 


THE  NEW  MECHANICS  209 

men  of  humble  birth,  and  the  costly  nature  of  their 
undertakings  prevented  them  from  speculating  for  profit. 
But  none  the  less  did  they  apply  themselves  with  the 
greatest  diligence  and  singleness  of  purpose  to  their 
vocation.  Satisfied  with  payment,  which  for  Brindley 
but  slightly  exceeded  a  millwright's  wage,  and  for  Tel- 
ford only  sufficed  for  a  respectable  competence,  they 
spent  their  whole  energy  on  devising  and  superintend- 
ing the  removal  of  physical  obstacles  to  society's  welfare 
and  development. 

Social  Dangers  involved  by  the  New  Industrial 
System. — But  the  system  assumed  a  new  character  as 
soon  as  it  was  made  available  for  the  general  public. 
The  elevation  of  society  was  lost  sight  of  in  a  feverish 
desire  to  acquire  money.  Beneficial  undertakings  had 
been  proved  profitable,  and  it  was  now  assumed  that  a 
business,  so  long  as  it  was  profitable,  did  not  require  to 
be  proved  beneficial.  The  sophism  suited  vulgar  incli- 
nations, and  unfortunately  it  gained  much  support  from 
the  individualistic  doctrine  of  economics  which  the 
same  period  produced  and  perfected. 

The  Old  Mercantile  System  of  Economics. — Till 
the  beginning  of  our  age  no  material  advance  was  made 
in  economic  theory.  Neither  speculative  absurdity  nor 
mischievous  consequences  had  been  able  to  discredit 
the  mercantile  system,  the  object  of  which  was  to  make 
trade  profitable  to  the  nation  by  taking  care,  as  Bacon 
said,  "  that  the  exportation  exceed  in  value  the  impor- 
tation, for  then  the  balance  of  trade  must  of  necessity 
be  in  coin  or  bullion."  And  since  a  country's  pros- 
perity was  held  to  depend  on  the  success  with  which  it 
impoverished  others  by  depriving  them  of  their  treasure, 
it  became  an  axiom  that  the  welfare  of  one's  own  land 
I  is  incompatible  with  that  of  other  nations.  The 
humanitarian  Voltaire  lamented,  "  Telle  est  la  condition 


210         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

humaine,  que  souhaiter  la  grandeur  de  son  pays,  c'est 
souhaiter  du  mal  k  ses  voisins.  II  est  claire  qu'un  pays 
ne  peut  gagner  sans  qu'un  autre  perde."  Even  Mon- 
tesquieu had  declared,  in  a  chapter  on  the  nations  to 
whom  commerce  must  be  disadvantageous,  that  "Un 
pays  qui  envoie  toujours  moins  de  marchandises  ou  de 
denr^es  qu'il  n'en  regoit  se  met  lui-meme  en  equilibre 
en  s'appauvrissant ;  il  recevra  toujours  moins,  jusqu'a 
ce  que,  dans  une  pauvret^  extreme,  il  ne  regoive  plus 
rien  .  .  .  I'argent  ne  revient  jamais,  parceque  ceux  qui 
I'ont  pris  ne  doivent  rien." 

Fallacies  of  the  Mercantile  System. — Men  who 
were  engaged  in  commerce  invariably  fell  into  the 
fallacies  of  the  mercantile  system  as  soon  as  they  passed 
from  their  special  business  to  the  consideration  of 
national  policy  as  a  whole.*  Professed  politicians  were 
too  much  influenced  by  the  voice  of  vested  interests,  the 
sophisms  of  erring  authority,  and  the  tendencies  of 
habit,  to  correct  its  inferences  by  results,  or  its  principles 
by  criticism.  Some  writers  exposed  clearly  enough 
certain  of  the  prevailing  misconceptions,  and  enunciated 
many  of  the  fundamental  propositions  of  economic 
science,  but  they  failed  to  subvert  the  structure  of  the 
system,  or  to  develop  their  truths  into  a  comprehensive 
theory.  And  when  a  better  doctrine  of  the  production 
and  distribution  of  national  wealth  was  arrived  at,  it 
was  by  the  exertions  of  a  purely  theoretical  thinker. 
Since  then,  no  doubt,  the  new  political  economy  has 
manifested  many  shortcomings.  But  if  the  science  is 
justly  chargeable  with  incapacity  to  meet  present  needs, 
if  it  even  be  guilty  of  having  contributed  to  the  creation 

•  When  writing  of  human  bondage,  Spinoza  had  said,  "  Verum 
omnium  rerum  compendium  pecunia  attulit.  Unde  factum,  ut  eius  imago 
mentem  vulgi  maxima  occupare  soleat  j  quia  vix  uUam  laetitiae  speciem 
imaginari  possunt,  nisi  concomitante  nummorum  idea  tanquam  causa." 


THE  NEW  ECONOMICS  211 

of  present  difficulties,  it  can  at  least  point  to  a  time 
when  it  destroyed  by  mere  force  of  reason  the  blunder- 
ing prejudices  of  vulgar  practice;  and  it  may  thus 
claim  a  presumption  that  it  may  yet  again  become 
capable  of  correcting  the  errors  of  the  past  and  introduc- 
ing the  improvements  of  the  future. 

"  The  Wealth  of  Nations :  "  its  Fundamental 
Hypothesis. — In  1776  Adam  Smith  published  An 
Inquiry  into  the  Nature  and  Causes  of  the  Wealth  of 
Nations.  Without  making  any  pretence  to  precise 
nomenclature  or  formal  construction,  this  treatise  first 
brought  economics  within  the  boundaries  of  science.  It 
gathered  up  all  the  sporadic  facts  which  earlier  observers 
had  noted,  and  organized  them  under  fundamental  prin- 
ciples into  a  consistent  body  of  reasoned  knowledge. 
In  order  to  effect  this  great  work,  Smith  confined  his 
attention  to  certain  classes  of  phenomena,  and  forebore 
from  dealing  with  those  kindred  subjects  which  together 
constitute  the  matter  of  sociology.  In  his  hands  political 
economy  was  concerned  only  with  the  production  and 
distribution  of  wealth  by  the  operation  of  man's  acquisi- 
tive propensities.  Just  as  in  his  theory  of  ethics  he 
had  regarded  exclusively  the  sympathetic  side  of  human 
nature,  so  now  he  assumed  the  action  alone  of  the  desire 
"of  bettering  our  condition,  a  desire  which,  though 
generally  calm  and  dispassionate,  comes  with  us  from 
the  womb  and  never  leaves  us  till  we  go  into  the  grave." 
Hence  the  science  he  created  has  been  reprobated  with 
the  most  defamatory  epithets  for  neglecting  what  is 
highest  in  man  ;  yet,  unless  he  had  circumscribed  his 
subject  by  this  application  of  the  analytic  method,  he 
could  hardly  have  accomplished  his  object.  Life,  it  is 
true,  is  an  organic  whole  ;  and  economics,  though  prin- 
cipally concerned  with  man  as  a  greedy  being,  must  miss 
part  of  its  subject  if  it  refuse  to  reckon  with  the  rest 


212         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

of  his  nature.  With  progress  the  scope  of  the  science 
may  expand  till  it  merges  in  that  of  sociology ;  but  so 
intricate  are  social  phenomena  that  this  class  of  facts 
would  never  have  been  brought  within  the  reach  of 
scientific  treatment  unless  the  great  Scotchman  had 
insisted  upon  starting  from  the  arbitrary  hypothesis 
that  man  is  revoltingly  selfish. 

Adam  Smith's  View  of  Wealth. — The  opening 
sentence  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations  declared  the 
fundamental  principle  which  distinguished  its  doctrine 
from  the  mercantile  and  physiocratic  systems.  Wealth 
is  never  precisely  defined  in  its  pages,  but  from  the 
outset  it  is  assumed  that  "every  man  is  rich  or  poor 
according  to  the  degree  in  which  he  can  afford  to  enjoy 
the  necessaries,  conveniences,  and  amusements  of  human 
life."  The  work  begins  by  asserting  that  "  the  annual 
labour  of  every  nation  is  the  fund  which  originally  sup- 
plies it  with  all  the  necessaries  and  conveniences  of  life 
which  it  annually  consumes,  and  which  consist  always 
either  in  the  immediate  produce  of  that  labour,  or  in 
what  is  purchased  with  that  produce  from  other  nations." 
This  truth  had  been  enunciated  by  Locke,  Serra,  and 
others,  but  its  value  had  been  overlooked  through 
neglect  to  proceed  further  with  its  analysis.  Smith,  on 
the  contrary,  immediately  pointed  out  how  the  abund- 
ance of  wealth  obtained  by  a  society  was  regulated,  first, 
by  "  the  skill,  dexterity,  and  judgment  with  which  its 
labour  is  generally  applied  ;  and,  secondly,  by  the  pro- 
portion between  the  number  of  those  who  are  employed 
in  useful  labour,  and  that  of  those  who  are  not  so 
employed."  In  the  first  of  these  circumstances,  division 
of  labour,  with  its  attendant  co-operation,  is  the  most 
important  factor.  All  trade,  both  domestic  and  inter- 
national, is  simply  division  and  co-operation  of  labour  ; 
and    thus    every    civilized    man    is    more    or    less    a 


THE  NEW  ECONOMICS  213 

merchant,  and  every  advanced  nation  a  commercial 
society. 

Distribution  of  Wealth. — As  division  of  labour 
involves  exchange,  so  exchange  involves  the  distribution 
of  what  is  produced.  The  distribution  naturally  takes 
place  among  the  agents  concerned  in  the  process  of 
production,  namely,  the  labourer ;  the  capitalist,  who 
sets  him  to  work ;  and  the  landowner,  who  lends  the 
use  of  his  land.  Labour  and  capital  are  employed  in 
the  production  of  every  commodity,  and,  in  most  cases, 
land,  for  which  a  rent  is  charged ;  though  it  is  not 
necessary  that  all  three  factors  should  be  owned  by 
different  persons.  -  The  satisfaction  of  these  different 
claims  to  a  share  in  a  product  constitutes  the  natural 
price  of  every  commodity,  for  the  natural  cost  of  any 
article  is  just  what  has  been  spent  on  its  production  in 
wages,  interest,  and  rent.  But  the  market-price  of 
commodities  is  noJ»so  simply  determined  on  account 
of  the  variations  between  supply  and  demand.  Still, 
competition,  and  the  mobility  of  capital  and  labour, 
continually  impel  the  market-price  of  all  things  to 
gravitate  towards  the  natural  price.  Herein  consists 
the  regulating  force  of  industry.  It  is  the  competition 
of  every  man  in  striving  to  make  the  best  of  his  labour, 
capital,  or  land,  which  determines  for  the  most  part  the 
amount  of  the  respective  shares  of  the  different  agents 
in  production,  and  ensures  that,  while  no  department 
of  industry  is  over-profitable  or  neglected,  none  shall  be 
permanently  underpaid  or  excessively  pursued. 

Expedience  of  Industrial  Freedom.-^r-Pursuing 
this  line  of  argument,  Adam  Smith  concluded  that  the 
proper  attitude  of  government  towards  industry  and 
commerce  is  that  of  non-interference.  By  analysis  of 
production,  he  proved  that  the  necessary  economical 
processes  take  place  automatically;  by  criticism,   he 


214         HISTORY   OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

demonstrated  that  all  attempts  to  improve  them  arti- 
ficially are  futile  and  injurious.  He  condemned  all 
restraints  on  labour,  such  as  the  privileges  of  corporations, 
statutes  of  apprenticeship,  and  the  English  law  of 
parochial  settlement,  by  showing  that  they  cause  work 
to  be  inferior  in  quality,  more  costly  to  the  public,  and 
less  remunerative  to  the  labourer.  The  fallacies  of  the 
mercantile  system,  and  the  consequent  restrictions  on 
commerce,  he  attacked  with  unsparing  severity  ;  and  he 
accumulated  a  mass  of  reasoned  evidence  in  favour  of 
free-trade  between  countries  and  with  colonies  which 
was  the  main  agent  in  bringing  about  that  state  of  com- 
mercial freedom  in  Great  Britain,  the  entire  restoration 
of  which  he  himself  regarded  as  absurd  to  expect  as 
**that  an  Oceana  or  Utopia  should  ever  be  established." 
Practical  Influence  of  Adam  Smith  upon  Europe. 
— To  trace  the  practical  influence  of  Adam  Smith's 
doctrines  would  involve  a  critical  analysis  of  the 
economical  history  of  all  civilized  states  during  the 
nineteenth  century.  Within  the  period  under  review 
it  was  necessarily  much  curtailed  by  stress  of  war,  and 
the  commercial  policy  of  Napoleon.  But  in  England  it 
became  immediately  operative  in  the  administration  of 
Lord  North,  and  in  that  of  Pitt,  who  was  a  professed 
disciple  of  Smith,  and  was  assisted  at  the  Treasury  by 
George  Rose,  the  secretary  under  North.  It  appeared 
in  the  deliberations  of  the  legislature  from  1783,  and  in 
1786  it  gained  memorable  expression  in  the  short-lived 
commercial  treaty  with  France.  The  reforms  in  Prussia 
were  practical  applications  of  the  same  kind,  insomuch 
as  they  were  less  tributes  to  sentiment  and  the  rights 
of  man  than  remedies  prompted  by  a  belief  that 
national  prosperity  is  best  promoted  by  freeing  land, 
labour,  and  exchange,  which  was  transmitted  from  the 
Wealth  of  Nations  to   Prussian  bureaucracy  through 


THE  NEW  ECONOMICS  215 

Krauss,  a  professor  of  Konigsberg.  The  financial 
policy  of  Speranski  in  Russia,  repudiating  as  it  did 
juggling  with  the  currency  in  favour  of  straight- 
forward efforts  to  liquidate  debt,  indicated  the  wide 
range  of  the  book's  practical  effects ;  and  the  treatise 
of  Storch,  written  at  the  request  of  Alexander  for  the 
instruction  of  his  brothers,  was  a  token  of  the  diffusion 
of  its  teaching.  At  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  the  fact 
that  the  interest  of  each  community  is  promoted  by  the 
welfare  and  intercourse  of  all,  received  such  recognition 
as  marked  a  new  phase  of  diplomatic  dealing.  Although 
the  crudest  economical  errors  were  still  widely  prevalent, 
as  was  manifest  in  the  painful  struggles  of  the  Austrian 
Government  to  escape  bankruptcy,  there  was  evinced 
at  this  period  a  general  sense  of  the  insufficiency  of  the 
old  principles,  and  a  leaning  towards  laissez  fairey  which 
were  clear  signs  of  a  fresh  factor  in  the  structure  of 
Europe.  And  if  the  Revolution  had  not  introduced 
more  equitable  principles  of  taxation,  the  new  political 
economy  would  perhaps  have  achieved  as  much  for 
fiscal  justice  as  it  did  for  industrial  freedom :  and 
certainly,  without  its  aid,  equity  would  have  failed  to 
produce  a  tolerable  apportionment  of  the  expenses  of 
government. 

Malthus  on  Population. — But  while  the  new 
political  economy  was  competent  to  exert  immediately  a 
beneficial  influence  on  the  conduct  of  national  affairs,  it 
was  far  from  being  either  scientifically  exact  or  practically 
complete.  Many  corrections,  additions,  and  formal  im- 
provements were  necessary  to  obtain  even  that  amount 
of  extension,  definiteness,  and  consistency  which  pre- 
maturely challenged  public  confidence  about  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  Of  the  additions  made  to 
Smith's  general  doctrine  none  were  more  notorious  than 
the  corollaries  which  Malthus  deduced  from  the  ratio 


216         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

obtaining  between  increase  of  population  and  increase  of 
food.  Adam  Smith  and  many  other  writers  had  noticed 
that  the  human  species  had  a  tendency  to  multiply  up 
to  the  level  of  the  means  of  subsistence.  Condorcet, 
indeed,  had  perceived  that  the  fact  was  a  rock  of  danger 
in  the  way  of  his  anticipations  of  human  progress.*  But 
it  was  not  till  1798  that  the  Essay  on  Population  demon- 
strated how  the  circumstance  contained  the  explanation 
of  much  of  the  misery  which  was  often  assigned  to  the 
consequences  of  social  institutions.  Indeed,  unless 
Rousseau,  Condorcet,  Godwin,  and  others  had  imputed 
all  the  evils  of  vice  and  misfortune  to  our  social  system, 
and  unless  the  English  poor  law  had  manifested  the 
dangers  attending  erroneous  belief  concerning  the 
principles  of  population,  Malthus  probably  would  never 
have  entered  his  emphatic  and  elaborate  protest  against 
heedless  reproduction.  Certainly  his  remonstrance 
would  have  been  less  vehement  at  first,  less  elaborate  in 
later  years,  and  less  uncompromising  throughout  the 
controversy  which  it  provoked.  Yet  he  did  but  state 
that  men  tend  to  increase  in  a  geometrical  ratio,  or  as 
the  numbers  2,  4,  8,  16 ;  while  the  production  of  food 
cannot  be  increased  faster  than  in  an  arithmetical  ratio, 
or  as  the  numbers  2,  3,  4,  5  ;  and  that  the  disparity 
between  these  two  different  orders  of  increase  is  over- 
come by  the  action  of  moral  restraint,  misery,  and  vice. 

*  "Si  on  suppose  qu'avant  ce  temps  les  pr ogres  de  la  raison  ayent 
marche  de  pair  avec  ceux  des  sciences  et  des  arts,  que  les  ridicules  prejuges 
de  la  supersition  ayent  cesse  de  repandre  sur  la  morale  une  austerite 
qui  la  corrompt  et  la  degrade  au  lieu  de  I'epurer  et  de  I'elever ;  les 
hommes  sauront  alors  que,  s'ils  ont  des  obligations  k  I'egard  des  etres  qui  ne 
sont  pas  encore,  elles  ne  consistent  pas  k  leur  donner  I'existence,  mais  le 
bonheur  ;  elles  ont  pour  objet  le  bien-etre  general  de  I'espece  humaine  ou 
de  la  societe  dans  laquelle  ils  vivent ;  de  la  famille  a  laquelle  ils  sont 
attaches  ;  et  non  la  puerile  idee  de  charger  la  terre  d'etres  inutiles  et 
malheureux. " — Esquisse  (Tun  Tableau  Historique  des  Progres  de  P Esprit 
Humain,  p.  364. 


THE  NEW  ECONOMICS  217 

His  teaching  did  but  recommend  that  the  first  of  these 
checks  should  be  adopted  by  rational  beings  in  pre- 
ference to  the  hideous  alternatives  which  nature  never 
fails  to  impose. 

Malthus  on  Poverty  and  Parentage. — Neverthe- 
less, Malthus'  treatment  of  the  subject  proved  very 
nauseous  to  his  generation.  He  wrote  when  law-givers, 
confounding  cause  with  effect,  as  they  had  done  in  the 
case  of  money,  believed  a  teeming  population  to  consti- 
tute a  powerful  and  prosperous  nation,  because  strong 
and  flourishing  countries  were  always  populous  ;  when 
legislation,  therefore,  indiscriminately  favoured  national 
fecundity ;  when  public  opinion  was  averse  to  deliberate 
abstinence  from  marriage,  and  individual  inclination  was 
encouraged  to  neglect  the  motives  of  prudence ;  when 
philanthropy  and  ordinary  compassion  ignored  the 
remoter  consequences  of  indiscreet  charity.  But  in  truth 
he  was,  to  use  Blanqui's  epigram,  no  more  desirous  that 
society  should  be  a  convent  than  he  was  that  it  should  be 
a  warren.  He  was,  too,  quite  aware  that  a  people's 
standard  of  comfort  may  be  raised  in  course  of  the 
progress  of  civilization,  no  less  than  its  level  of  misery 
may  be  depressed  by  inconsiderate  propagation.  He  did 
not  overlook  emigration  "  as  a  partial  and  temporary 
expedient "  for  relieving  a  congested  population  ;  nor 
could  he  fail  to  perceive  how  industrial  improvements 
were  providing  for  increasing  numbers  of  consumers. 
Still  he  offended  much  by  insisting  on  the  truism  that  a 
redundant  population  has  no  natural  right  to  the  means 
of  subsistence,  and  that  the  English  poor  law  should  be 
abolished  gradually.  He  offended  yet  more  by  show- 
ing parentage  to  be  no  blind  spontaneous  function, 
but  the  weightiest  of  responsibilities,  whose  assumption 
should  be  most  anxiously  considered. 

Adam    Smith's    Error     respecting    Rent. — The 


218         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

Malthusian  theory  of  population  was  rather  an  elucida- 
tion than  a  correction  of  Adam  Smith's  treatment  of 
its  subject,  but  it  was  closely  connected  with  a  very 
important  emendation  of  the  Wealth  of  Nations,  The 
tendency  of  people  to  multiply  beyond  present  means  of 
subsistence  frequently  involves  resort  to  fresh  and  in- 
ferior land,  or  the  expenditure  of  more  capital  and  labour 
on  that  already  under  cultivation,  as  was  happening  in 
England  at  that  time  on  an  unusually  large  scale.  The 
question  then  arises,  to  whose  behoof  does  such  an 
expansion  of  industry  principally  conduce  ?  Who 
profits  most  by  increase  of  agricultural  produce,  and  the 
growth  of  population  and  manufactures  which  it  sup- 
ports ?  Do  labour  and  capital  enjoy  the  whole  proceeds 
of  their  more  strenuous  application  ?  Now,  Adam  Smith 
had  said  that  "  as  soon  as  the  land  of  any  country  has 
all  become  private  property,  the  landlords,  like  all  other 
men,  like  to  reap  where  they  never  sowed,  and  demand 
a  rent  even  for  its  natural  produce."  Such  extortion, 
he  had  represented,  forms  a  component  part  of  the 
price  of  most  commodities,  though  more  than  once  he 
seems  to  be  on  the  point  of  adopting  a  more  defensible 
opinion. 

The  Ricardian  Theory  of  Rent — Now  in  1817 
Ricardo  published  his  Principles  of  Political  Economy 
and  Taxation;  and  in  this  work  it  was  shown,  as 
indeed  other  writers  had  observed,  that  rent  is  no  part 
of  price,  and  might  be  abolished  without  reducing' 
prices  in  any  degree.  Rent  is  simply  the  surplus  pro- 
duce of  land  after  capital  and  labour  have  received  their 
current  rate  of  remuneration.  The  quantity  of  this  sur- 
plus varies  with  the  quality  and  other  circumstances  of 
the  soil.  Society  must  cultivate  a  certain  area  of  land 
with  a  certain  degree  of  intensity  in  order  to  obtain  food, 
but  there  is  always  a  point  where  the  less  fertile  soils 


THE  NEW  ECONOMICS  219 

and  the  most  costly  tillage  cease  to  yield  a  return  ex- 
ceeding the  expenses  of  farming  and  transport  to  market. 
This  margin  of  extensive  and  intensive  cultivation  shifts 
with  the  demand  for  agricultural  produce.  Speaking 
generally,  there  will  always  be  some  land  and  some 
capital  employed  which  yield  no  surplus  to  serve  as  rent. 
It  is  the  point  where  rent  reaches  zero  that  determines 
the  rent  of  all  other  soils  under  cultivation.  Hence 
Ricardo  said  "the  rise  of  rent  is  always  the  effect  of 
the  increasing  wealth  of  the  country,  and  of  the  difficulty 
of  providing  food  for  its  augmented  population."  The 
wider  the  margin  of  cultivation  extends,  the  higher  is 
the  rent  which  landowners  can  obtain  for  the  soils  already 
in  use.  Though  the  principle  did  not  characterize  them 
as  purposeless  extortioners  in  the  manner  of  the  Wealth 
of  Nations,  it  certainly  suggested  a  doubt  whether  their 
functions  might  not  be  discharged  by  some  less  insatiable 
agent.  It  proved  that  as  a  governing  party  they  were 
not  to  be  trusted  with  the  power  of  controlling  the 
people's  means  of  obtaining  cheap  food  from  abroad. 

The  Conflict  between  Capital  and  Labour. — The 
knowledge  that  rent  is  not  a  component  part  of  price 
enabled  Ricardo  to  apply,  more  consistently  than  did 
Adam  Smith,  the  principle  that  labour  is  the  real 
measure  of  exchangeable  value  ;  and  to  determine  more 
precisely,  by  aid  of  the  Malthusian  theory  of  population, 
the  relations  between  capital  and  labour,  and  the  effects 
of  taxation.  As  he  defined  with  greater  distinctness 
the  antagonism  between  the  interests  of  landowners  and 
those  of  the  rest  of  the  community,  so  he  made  more 
evident  the  conflict  involved  in  the  distribution  of  wages 
and  profits. 

Say's  Doctrine  of  Gluts  and  International  Trade. 
— On  the  Continent  the  new  political  economy  found  a 
skilful  expositor  in  J.  B.  Say.     Recasting  the  doctrines 


220         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

of  Smith  in  a  more  symmetrical  form,  the  Frenchman 
was  able  to  add  few  material  improvements  of  his  own, 
but  he  developed  with  much  felicity  his  master's  views 
on  trade.  It  was  especially  appropriate  that  a  country- 
man of  Voltaire  and  Montesquieu  should  render  this 
service  to  international  intercourse.  Say  atoned  for 
much  of  his  neglect  of  contemporary  advances  by  the 
success  with  which  he  secured  assent  to  the  truth  that 
the  industry  of  all  nations  is  made  more  productive  by 
extending  division  of  labour  and  enlarging  the  common 
market,  and  that  wealth  is  to  be  increased  by  liberal 
exchanges  with  prosperous  neighbours  as  well  as  by 
augmented  production  at  home.  Incidentally  he  gained 
association  with  an  important  corollary  from  this 
principle  by  advancing  his  theory  of  debouMs  against 
the  mischievous  apprehension  of  gluts,  which  at  various 
times  has  sanctioned  restrictions,  extravagance,  and 
waste.  He  showed  that  general  over-production  is 
impossible  because  every  one  is  always  glad  to  exchange 
the  commodities  at  his  disposal  if  there  exist  sufficient 
of  other  commodities  to  make  a  bargain.  Sometimes 
inconvenience  is  experienced  when  a  particular  com- 
modity has  been  produced  in  excess  through  an  error 
of  judgment,  or  when  the  purchasing  power  of  con- 
sumers has  decreased  through  diminished  production 
on  their  part.  Complaints  that  scarcity  of  money  is  a 
cause  of  commercial  dulness  are  merely  expressions  of 
shopkeepers'  peevishness.  If  the  proper  commodities 
existed  in  sufficient  abundance,  their  exchange  would 
be  effected,  though  one  coin  had  to  do  the  work  of  ten. 
The  sole  cure  of  over-production  is  increased  aggregate 
production.  "  Les  ^changes  termines,  11  se  trouve 
toujours  qu'on  a  pay^  des  produits  avec  des  produits." 
This  was,  indeed,  the  chief  practical  contribution  of  the 
new  political  economy  to  the  groundwork  of  modern 


THE  NEW  ECONOMICS  221 

Europe  ;  and  it  was  the  greatest,  as  it  was  the  simplest, 
victory  over  the  old  order  which  science  could  have 
achieved. 

Place  of  the  Unemployed  in  the  Modern  Indus- 
trial System. — It  remains  to  conclude  this  brief 
review  of  the  industrial  and  economical  revolution  by 
a  momentary  reference  to  the  most  sinister  of  its  con- 
ditions. In  actual  practice,  by  sober  theory,  England 
had  worked  out  the  system  of  free  contract  and  indi- 
vidual competition,  which  was  to  supplant  everywhere  the 
system  of  status.  Pregnant  with  its  own  evils,  as  well 
as  prolific  of  its  benefits,  this  industrial  order  had  soon  to 
submit  to  regulations,  often  ignorant,  more  often  timid. 
But  it  is  doubtful  if  any  of  the  proletariat  of  to-day 
would  be  able  to  live  as  a  serf  lived  under  the  regime  of 
status.  On  the  whole  the  gain  has  been  great  and 
permanent.  The  worst  feature  of  the  whole  system  up 
to  the  present  time  is  that  the  leaders  of  industry  and 
the  statesmen  of  nations  have  so  far  failed  to  prevent 
periodical  fluctuations  of  trade.  The  progressive  in- 
dustries have  always  been  dependent  for  their  progress 
on  a  ready  supply  of  labour  not  otherwise  employed  at 
the  moment.  Hence  it  came  about  that  the  system  of 
contract  and  competition,  while  it  defended  mankind 
from  the  terrors  of  famine  and  the  burden  of  serfage, 
could  not  provide  for  the  wants  of  rapidly  increasing 
populations  without  the  command  of  a  very  elastic 
supply  of  labour.  In  other  words,  labour  was  never 
sufficient  unless  it  were  often  redundant.  In  order  to 
meet  the  variations  of  markets,  bewildering  in  extent 
and  indispensable  for  the  economies  of  large  produc- 
tion, a  numerous  floating  population,  ever  on  the  verge 
of  hungry  unemployment,  has  had  to  be  kept  on  call  as 
part  of  the  great  industry's  ordinary  stock-in-trade. 
"  They  also  serve  who  only  stand  and  wait "  was  from 


222         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

the  first  a  mocking  counsel  of  consolation  for  the  un- 
employed. But  it  did  not  save  them,  nor  did  it  save 
the  employed,  from  becoming  pitiable  victims  to  the 
principle,  "Let  one  mind  one,  and  all  are  minded 
then." 


CHAPTER  IX 
POSITIVE  SCIENCE:   CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY 

"  Although  the  invention  of  plausible  hypotheses,  independent 
of  any  connection  with  experimental  observation,  can  be  of  very 
little  use  in  the  promotion  of  natural  knowledge  ;  yet  the  discovery 
of  simple  and  uniform  principles,  by  which  a  great  number  of 
apparently  heterogeneous  phenomena  are  reduced  to  coherent  and 
universal  laws,  must  ever  be  allowed  to  be  of  considerable  im- 
portance towards  the  improvement  of  the  human  intellect." — 
Thomas  Young. 

"  Personal  interests  and  feelings,  in  the  social  state,  can  only 
obtain  the  maximum  of  satisfaction  by  means  of  co-operation,  and 
the  necessary  condition  of  co-operation  is  a  common  belief.  All 
human  society,  consequently,  is  grounded  on  a  system  of  funda- 
mental opinions,  which  only  the  speculative  faculty  can  provide, 
and  which,  when  provided,  directs  our  other  impulses  in  their 
mode  of  seeking  their  gratification.  And  hence  the  history  of 
opinions,  and  of  the  speculative  faculty,  has  always  been  the  leading 
element  in  the  history  of  mankind." — J.  S.  Mill. 

Positive   Science  and  General  History From  the 

point  of  view  of  general  history  the  growth  of  man's 
acquaintance  with  the  physical  conditions  of  his 
existence  possesses  a  twofold  significance.  It  is  the 
part  of  special  histories  to  record  the  steps  by  which 
the  different  sciences  have  developed,  and  to  indicate 
the  particular  methods  which  promise  by  past  success 
to  facilitate  further  advance.  It  is  the  business  of 
general  history  to  discern  the  logical  and  practical 
results  which  accrue  to  society  from  scientific  progress, 

223 


224         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

and  to  determine  the  speculative  influence  which  con- 
sequent physical  conceptions  exert  over  men's  beliefs. 
In  the  eighteenth  century,  science  was  notable  chiefly 
because  it  encouraged  men  to  trust  in  their  own  reason  ; 
in  the  nineteenth,  it  confirmed  and  rewarded  this  faith 
by  yielding  a  knowledge  of  physical  phenomena  which 
has  both  totally  changed  the  material  conditions  of 
civilized  life,  and  greatly  modified  current  conceptions 
of  human  existence.  Hence  the  science  of  the  period 
under  review,  falling  between  the  two  ages,  issuing  from 
the  one  and  emerging  into  the  other,  was  distinguished 
by  few  immediately  practical  results.  And  its  influence 
on  speculative  beliefs  hardly  countervailed  the  dislike 
to  vigorous  thinking  which  circumstances  attending  the 
Revolution  produced  in  the  popular  mind.  On  the 
other  hand,  science  at  this  time  first  fully  justified  the 
hopes  of  earlier  enthusiasts  by  laying  the  foundation  of 
fact  and  theory,  on  which  was  reared  the  structure  of 
modern  physical  knowledge. 

The  Growth  of  Positive  Theory  in  Inductive 
Science. — So  long  as  empirical  data  are  few  and  dis- 
connected, science  cannot  be  said  to  exist.  It  is  only 
when  facts  are  brought  into  relation  with  one  another 
by  hypotheses,  which  at  least  give  coherence  for  a  time 
to  a  considerable  body  of  particulars,  that  knowledge 
rises  above  common  experience  or  curious  observation. 
But  as  facts  accumulate  and  grow  more  intelligible, 
scientific  conceptions  lose  their  provisional  and  arbitrary 
character.  They  at  last  become  expressions  of  natural 
laws.  While  they  organize  known  facts  into  consistent 
schemes,  they  provide  tests  for  new  conclusions  and 
clues  for  further  research.  Though  existing  only  in 
idea,  they  are  capable  of  furnishing  deductions  which 
invariably  conform  with  observation  ;  though  subject  to 
correction  and  amplification,  they  rapidly  absorb  every 


POSITIVE  SCIENCE  225 

new  discovery  within  their  several  provinces ;  though 
thus  embracing  ever-increasing  quantities  of  data,  they 
constantly  tend  towards  greater  simplification  by  realiz- 
ing William  of  Ockham*s  logical  law  of  parsimony, 
Entia  prceter  necessitatem  non  multiplicanda ;  though 
mere  theories,  they  prove  themselves  to  be  as  positive 
as  sensible  experience.  In  fact,  science  becomes  a 
system  of  positive  theories  which  render  particular 
phenomena  intelligible,  and  the  process  of  induction 
fruitful.  It  was  to  this  fundamental  stage  that  much 
of  physical  knowledge  attained  when  in  other  respects 
the  groundwork  of  our  age  was  formed. 

Newton's  Law  of  Gravitation. — The  enunciation 
of  the  most  complete  example  of  positive  theory  be- 
longed, it  is  true,  to  an  earlier  period ;  but  its  specula- 
tive influence  and  extended  application  were  of  greatest 
historical  importance  throughout  the  eighteenth  century 
and  in  the  earlier  years  of  the  nineteenth.  Not  till 
more  than  fifty  years  after  publication  did  Newton's 
great  law  secure  general  acceptance  among  students  of 
science  on  the  Continent.  Mathematicians  were  still 
persuading  themselves  by  rigorous  demonstrations  that 
in  molar  physics,  gravitation — varying  directly  as  the 
masses,  and  inversely  as  the  square  of  the  distance — 
was  a  more  satisfactory  formula  than  the  Cartesian 
theory  of  vortices,  when  intelligent  men  began  to  feel 
the  same  confidence  in  their  ability  to  comprehend  the 
highest  laws  of  matter  as  in  a  former  generation  they 
had  felt  it  in  their  power  to  deal  with  spiritual  questions 
after  Descartes  had  offered  them  a  starting-point  in  his 
Cogito,  ergo  sum.  It  was,  moreover,  during  the  process 
of  verifying  the  theory  that  the  greatest  advances  were 
made  in  the  most  imposing  branch  of  physical  science. 
In  their  efforts  to  complete  Newton's  application  of 
his  law  to  the  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies, 
Q 


226         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

astronomers  obtained  a  mastery  of  celestial  physics 
which  cast  into  insignificance  the  earlier  empirical  gene- 
ralizations ;  and  their  triumphant  course  continued  till 
the  fabric  of  theoretical  astronomy  was  handed  over 
in  an  almost  complete  state  to  the  observers  of  last 
century. 

Construction  of  Lunar  Tables  for  Navigation. — 
In  one  problem  these  labours  gained  wide  respect  for 
the  new  theory  by  yielding  great  practical  benefit  to  the 
public.  For  a  long  time  it  had  been  well  understood 
that  the  art  of  navigation  was  subject  to  formidable 
dangers  and  hindrances  through  want  of  means  for 
accurately  determining  longitude,  and  many  European 
governments  had  offered  large  rewards  for  the  invention 
of  sufficiently  precise  methods.  One  scheme,  which 
promised  to  satisfy  practical  conditions  if  the  necessary 
basis  for  calculation  could  be  obtained,  was  to  ascertain 
the  difference  between  local  time  and  that  of  some  fixed 
station,  and  thence  to  reckon  the  difference  of  longitude 
between  the  two  places.  To  do  this  it  was  necessary 
to  employ  very  exact  timekeepers ;  and  not  till  1765 
did  John  Harrison  receive  a  large  reward  from  the 
British  government  for  having  made  the  first  marine 
chronometers,  on  the  principle  of  compensation  through 
the  unequal  contraction  of  two  metals,  which  proved 
competent  to  fulfil  the  required  conditions.  A  second 
method  likewise  compared  local  time  with  that  of  a 
fixed  station,  but  it  sought  to  discover  the  latter  by 
observing  the  position  of  the  moon  with  regard  to  one 
of  the  principal  planets  or  stars.  Now,  the  invention 
of  Hadley's  reflecting  quadrant  in  173 1  enabled  seamen 
to  make  accurate  observations  from  the  deck  of  a  vessel ; 
but  the  process  also  required  that  the  time  of  the  fixed 
station,  corresponding  with  the  position  of  the  moon, 
should  be  known.     This  datum  could  only  be  derived 


POSITIVE   SCIENCE  227 

from  accurate  lunar  tables.  Since  the  sixteenth  century, 
astronomers  had  striven  to  forecast  the  precise  move- 
ments of  the  moon  ;  but  the  subject  proved  to  be  one 
of  great  complexity,  which  baffled  all  investigation  till 
after  Newton's  discovery  of  the  law  of  gravitation.  Even 
then  mathematicians  had  to  extend  their  command  of 
analysis,  and  solve  the  problem  of  three  bodies,  before 
they  were  able  to  advance  beyond  the  point  where  the 
great  master  had  left  the  question.  Ultimately,  through 
the  labours  of  Euler,  Clairaut,  and  d'Alembert,  Mayer 
succeeded  in  constructing  lunar  tables  which  possessed 
so  much  accuracy  that  the  Board  of  Longitude  saw  fit 
to  adopt  them  for  purposes  of  navigation.  Rewards 
were  granted  to  Euler  and  to  Mayer's  widow.  The  first 
nautical  almanack  was  published  in  1767,  and  since  then 
the  lunar  theory  has  proved  to  be  the  most  trustworthy 
source  of  the  mariner's  knowledge  of  his  longitude. 

General  Acceptance  of  the  Law  of  Gravity. — 
As  late  as  1740  the  French  Academy  of  Sciences 
divided  a  prize  between  a  mathematician  who  attempted 
to  account  for  the  tides  on  the  Cartesian  hypothesis, 
and  three  others,  who  adopted  the  principle  by  which 
Newton  had  connected  the  tides  with  the  attraction  of 
the  moon  and  the  variations  introduced  by  the  sun  as 
it  acted  in  conjunction  with,  or  in  opposition  to,  this 
satellite.  When  in  1772  Maskelyne  proposed  testing, 
by  the  deflection  of  a  plumb-line,  the  attraction  exerted 
by  the  mass  of  a  hill,  he  recommended  the  trial  on  the 
ground  that  it  "would  make  the  universal  gravitation 
of  matter,  as  it  were,  palpable  to  every  person,  and  fit 
to  convince  those  who  will  yield  their  assent  to  nothing 
but  downright  experiment."  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  celebrated  Schehallion  measurements,  which  were 
undertaken  in  consequence,  and  the  following  trials  by 
the  torsion  balance,  were  chiefly  interesting  on  account 


S28         HISTORY  OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

of  the  information  they  furnished  concerning  the  density 
of  the  earth.  Meanwhile  continental  mathematicians 
had  become  fully  aware  that  Newton  had  exhausted 
the  resources  of  the  ancient  geometry — an  admission 
which  their  English  rivals  unfortunately  failed  to  con- 
cede— and  they  had  equipped  themselves  with  the 
powers  of  the  calculus  which  he  and  Leibniz  had  be- 
queathed to  them.  Astronomical  investigation  now 
ceased  to  be  an  ordeal  of  the  theory  of  gravity,  and 
verification  of  the  principle  was  merged  in  the  rapid 
progress  of  the  science.  When  some  discrepancy  be- 
tween calculation  and  fact  occurred,  it  only  attracted 
more  attention  to  the  solution  of  the  problem  when  it 
was  reached.  Anomalies  were  invariably  proved  to  be 
but  apparent,  till  at  last  they  came  to  be  taken  as  indi- 
cations that  a  peculiarly  refined  illustration  of  the  theory 
was  about  to  be  discovered. 

The  Law  of  Gravity  extended  to  Sidereal 
Astronomy. — As  the  general  tendency  of  Newton's 
astronomical  labours  was  to  demonstrate  the  harmo- 
nious interdependence  obtaining  at  present  among  the 
planetary  bodies,  so  that  of  the  speculations  of  the 
next  epoch  was  to  prove  the  stability  of  the  solar 
system,  and  to  remove  all  apprehension  of  any  con- 
siderable change  in  the  seasons  on  the  earth.  And  as 
soon  as  the  internal  economy  of  our  planetary  system 
had  satisfactorily  been  determined,  its  external  rela- 
tions were  brought  within  the  limits  of  discussion.  As 
early  as  1783,  William  Herschel,  the  initiator  of  a  new 
phase  of  observation  and  the  founder  of  sidereal  astro- 
nomy, concluded  from  his  consideration  of  the  proper 
motions  of  the  fixed  stars  that  the  solar  system  was 
travelling  through  space  to  a  point  in  the  constellation 
of  Hercules.  By  constructing  telescopes  of  very  superior 
power,  the  same  astronomer  was  enabled  to  detect  the 


POSITIVE   SCIENCE  229 

first  of  a  large  number  of  planets,  which  modern  obser- 
vation has  added  to  those  known  to  the  ancient  world. 
But  the  most  notable  result  of  his  persistent  researches 
was  the  detection  of  orbitual  motions  among  the  binary- 
stars,  similar  to  those  produced  in  the  solar  system  by 
force  of  gravity.  This  presumptive  evidence,  that  the 
law  of  gravity  obtains  in  other  systems  than  our  own, 
was  laid  before  the  Royal  Society  in  1802. 

The  Nebular  Hypothesis. — Herschel's  profound 
examination  of  the  heavenly  bodies  also  afforded  sup- 
port to  a  conjectural  extension  of  the  law  of  gravity  to 
a  more  distant  region  of  time  as  well  as  of  space. 
Hitherto  the  nebulae  known  to  astronomers  had  not 
numbered  150.  Herschel  proved  this  class  of  pheno- 
mena to  be  large  and  varied.  Among  them  he  detected 
nebulosities  which  appeared  to  be  homogeneous  and 
irresolvable  into  stars,  others  which  seemed  to  have 
central  cores  of  different  degrees  of  definiteness.  Hence 
he  was  led  to  hazard  the  conjecture  that  these  nebulae 
were  stages  in  the  formation  of  stars,  and  that  the 
celestial  bodies  were  produced  by  the  condensation  of 
nebulous  matter  which  was  originally  diffused  through 
space.  Now,  as  early  as  1755  Kant  had  applied  such 
a  hypothesis  to  explain  the  evolution  of  the  solar 
system  in  its  present  form ;  and  in  1796  a  similar 
theory  had  been  put  forth  by  Laplace.  The  hypothesis 
postulated  the  existence  of  highly  diffused  nebulous 
matter  which  rotated  in  the  form  of  a  spheroid,  and, 
gradually  condensing  and  cooling,  threw  off  concentric 
rings  till  only  the  central  portion  remained  to  form  our 
sun.  The  rings  broke  up  and  formed  new  spheroids, 
which  also  condensed,  revolved,  and  sometimes  threw 
off  rings  of  their  own,  thus  forming  the  planets  and 
their  satellites.  Kant  thought  that  he  could  account  for 
both  condensation  and  rotation  by  the  two  elementary 


230        HISTORY  OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

forces  of  attraction  and  repulsion ;  but  Laplace  sup- 
posed that  condensation  was  the  result  of  cooling, 
and  postulated  an  original  impulse  of  rotation.  Both 
speculatists  maintained  that  the  harmonious  disposition 
of  our  system  pointed  to  a  single  genesis,  and  urged 
that  the  actual  movements  agreed  with  the  particular 
process  supposed.  For  some  time  the  confirmation, 
which  Herschel's  researches  afforded,  was  disregarded 
in  the  belief  that,  since  more  powerful  telescopes  re- 
solved many  nebulae  into  clusters  of  stars,  only  higher 
magnifying  powers  were  required  to  deprive  all  nebu- 
losities of  their  distinctive  character.  But  more  recently 
various  facts  were  seen  to  coincide  with  the  hypothesis, 
and  to  render  it  probable  that  the  outstanding  nebulae 
are  really  fragments  of  diffused  matter  in  different 
phases  of  condensation.  Later  still,  spectrum  analysis 
has  proved  some  of  the  nebulae  to  be  of  a  gaseous 
nature,  and  the  sun  and  planets  to  be  made  of  the  same 
materials. 

Newton's  Theory  of  Light. — Indirectly,  the  pur- 
suit of  astronomical  knowledge  led  to  the  cultivation 
of  a  branch  of  physics,  the  fundamental  theory  of  which 
was  only  reached  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Long  before  the  real  nature  of  light  was 
satisfactorily  ascertained,  the  need  for  better  telescopes 
had  urged  men  to  careful  study  of  optical  phenomena, 
and  certainty  of  observation  had  required  some  ac- 
quaintance with  the  character  of  the  medium  through 
which  the  existence,  form,  and  position  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  are  perceived.  Researches  after  the  latter  kind 
of  information  had  yielded  empirical  laws  of  atmo- 
spheric refraction,  the  truth  that  light  travels  with  a 
certain  velocity,  and  that  the  effect  of  aberration  is  thus 
produced.  Indeed,  Roemer's  inference  from  the  eclipses 
of  Jupiter's   moons,  that  light  travels  at  the  rate   of 


POSITIVE  SCIENCE  231 

192,500  miles  per  second,*  and  Bradley's  verification 
thereof  by  discovering  apparent  movements  of  the  stars 
in  consequence,  may  be  said  to  have  formed  the  basis 
of  modern  speculation  on  the  nature  of  light.  The 
scientific  construction  of  telescopes  had,  on  the  other 
hand,  furnished  a  variety  of  data  from  which  theory 
might  advance  to  explain  the  nature  and  movements 
of  the  illuminating  agent.  It  was,  indeed,  when  he  was 
engaged  in  grinding  lenses  that  Newton  made  the 
experiments  by  which  he  discovered  the  composite 
character  of  white  light,  and  the  unequal  refrangibility 
of  the  different  rays  which  form  it. 

The  Undulatory  Theory  of  Light.— But  till  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  authority  of 
Newton,  and  the  ability  with  which  he  had  reconciled 
his  corpuscular  hypothesis  with  facts,  deterred  people 
from  resorting  to  the  more  difficult  assumptions  of  the 
undulatory  theory.  Then  the  necessary  steps  towards 
establishing  what  Huyghens  and  Hooke  had  only  been 
able  partially  to  formulate  were  made  by  Thomas 
Young.  Regarded  from  our  present  point  of  view, 
Young's  first  investigations  appear  to  have  proved  that 
his  assumption  that  light  is  a  sensation  caused  by  the 
vibration  of  an  ethereal  fluid  was  at  least  a  good 
working  hypothesis.  But  unfortunately  his  experiments 
and  reasonings  were  ignorantly  and  maliciously  criti- 
cized by  Brougham  in  the  Edinburgh  Review;  the 
public  cared  so  little  to  adjudicate  on  the  merits  of  the 
controversy  that  only  one  copy  of  Young's  able  reply 
was  sold,t  and  the  current  scientific  conceptions  re- 
mained undisturbed  till,  years  later,  other  witnesses  gave 

*  The  real  speed  is  about  186,000  miles  per  second. 

t  One  consequence  of  the  attack  was  that  a  publisher,  who  had  offered 
Young  ;^  1 000  for  the  copyright  of  his  Lectures,  was  obliged  to  request  to 
be  released  from  his  bargain. 


232         HISTORY   OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

evidence  in  favour  of  the  theory.  Then,  by  help  of 
Malus,  Arago,  and  Fresnel,  the  problem  of  polarization 
of  light  was  solved  by  developing  the  undulatory  hypo- 
thesis another  step.  The  theory  did  not  demand  a  new 
assumption,  as  the  corpuscular  doctrine  so  frequently 
did  ;  it  merely  necessitated  a  more  ample  conception 
of  what  was  already  granted.  It  only  required  that  the 
vibrations  should  be  thought  of  as  transversal,  and  not 
as  longitudinal.  Hence  it  led  directly  to  a  fuller  ex- 
planation of  double  refraction  by  showing  that  certain 
crystals  act  as  selective  media  to  ordinary  light,  and 
only  permit  the  transversal  waves  to  pass  in  certain 
planes  of  vibration.  Hence,  too,  it  yielded  data  for 
most  recondite  calculations  and  most  striking  verifica- 
tions. However  advancing  knowledge  may  further 
modify  its  statement,  it  afforded  the  means  of  bringing 
a  great  body  of  phenomena  within  the  scope  of  calcula- 
tion, and  thus  fairly  ranked  as  a  positive  theory  of 
physics. 

Theory  of  Sound. — The  mode  in  which  sound  is 
produced  by  a  wave-like  motion  of  the  atmosphere  gave 
Young  a  clue  to  the  nature  of  light-rays  ;  but  it  was 
only  in  this  period  that  the  true  character  of  aerial 
vibrations  was  defined,  and  the  fundamental  theory  of 
acoustics  was  completed  by  Laplace.  This  period  was 
also  remarkable  for  Chladni's  contributions  to  the  theory 
of  musical  tone,  and  the  study  of  the  diverse  vibratory 
phenomena  which  are  embraced  by  the  science  of  sound. 
Chladni  has,  indeed,  been  called  the  father  of  modern 
acoustics;  and  the  distinction  is  sufficiently  just,  because 
at  this  time  the  development  of  the  science  did  not  so 
much  need  the  guidance  of  some  new  fundamental 
principle  as  careful  investigation  of  the  various  con- 
ditions which  determine  different  forms  of  audible 
vibration. 


POSITIVE   SCIENCE  233 

Dynamical  Theory  of  Heat. — It  was  far  other- 
wise with  the  study  of  heat.  The  nature  of  this  agent 
was  no  less  misunderstood  than  was  that  of  light  before 
the  discoveries  of  Young  and  Fresnel ;  and  the  want  of 
positive  theory  was  equally  unfavourable  to  the  acquisi- 
tion of  empirical  knowledge  and  the  advance  of  scientific 
conceptions  of  the  universe.  A  like  belief  in  the  emis- 
sion of  a  material  substance  served  to  connect  observed 
facts,  and  in  some  instances,  as  in  those  of  conduction 
and  radiation,  it  served  to  do  so  satisfactorily.  But  in 
the  last  two  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  both  Rum- 
ford  and  Davy  independently  proved  that  heat  is  not 
material.  The  experiments  of  the  latter  coiisisted  in 
melting  ice  by  friction ;  but  he  did  not  assert  that  heat 
was  motion  till  several  years  after  he  had  made  his 
experiments.  Rumford,  on  the  other  hand,  predisposed 
to  regard  the  subject  very  seriously  by  his  investigations 
into  the  economy  of  heating  and  lighting  arrangements, 
instituted  a  careful  examination  of  the  circumstances 
attending  the  generation  of  heat  during  the  process  of 
boring  cannon.  He  showed  that  the  elevation  of  tem- 
perature was  entirely  produced  through  expenditure  of 
energy  by  an  experimental  application  of  friction  pro- 
duced by  horse-power  to  heat  bodies  of  metal  and 
water,  and  by  proofs  that  nothing  had  been  lost  in 
weight  or  in  capacity  for  absorbing  or  producing  heat 
by  the  substances  which  by  their  motion  had  supplied 
high  degrees  of  warmth.  "  What  is  heat .? "  asked 
Rumford.  "  Is  there  any  such  thing  as  an  igneous 
fluid  ?  Is  there  any  such  thing  that  can  with  propriety 
be  called  caloric  ? "  He  then  argued  "  that  anything 
which  any  insulated  body,  or  system  of  bodies,  can 
continue  to  furnish  without  limitation  cannot  possibly 
be  a  material  substance ; "  that  it  is  "  extremely  difficult, 
if  not  quite  impossible,  to  form  any  distinct  idea   of 


234         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

anything  capable  of  being  excited  and  communicated 
in  the  manner  the  heat  was  excited  and  communicated 
in  these  experiments,  except  it  be  motion."  Rumford 
also  endeavoured  to  estimate  the  quantitative  relation 
between  heat  produced  by  friction  and  heat  produced 
by  combustion  ;  he  spoke  of  the  power  of  animals  as 
being  due  to  their  food,  which  might  thus  be  caused  to 
supply  heat  mechanically  or  by  being  used  as  fuel  ; 
and  he  pointed  out  that  heat  could  be  produced  by 
mechanical  action  of  various  kinds.  Hence  he  was,  in 
truth,  the  first  of  a  line  of  workers  who  were  to  demon- 
strate in  another  generation  the  correlation  and  con- 
servation of  forces. 

The  Phlogistic  Theory  of  Chemistry. — In  them- 
selves both  the  demonstrations  of  Rumford  and  Davy 
were  virtually  complete,  but  neither  was  presented  with- 
out logical  error.  Perhaps  it  was  on  this  account  that 
they  failed  to  convert  the  scientific  world.  And  up  to 
a  certain  point  the  persistence  of  the  belief  in  a  hypo- 
thetical caloric  was  paralleled  by  the  obstinacy  of  a 
cardinal  assumption  of  the  older  chemists.  For  a  long 
time  phlogiston  was  conceived  to  be  the  principle  of 
combustion,  as  caloric  was  imagined  to  be  that  of  heat ; 
its  expulsion  was  supposed  to  be  the  occasion  of  fire,  as 
that  of  caloric  was  supposed  to  be  the  occasion  of 
elevated  temperature.  And  so  closely  was  its  assumed 
existence  connected  with  the  state  of  chemical  know- 
ledge of  the  day,  that  its  systematic  determination  by 
Stahl  is  rightly  considered  to  have  been  of  great  service 
in  aiding  the  collocation  of  discrete  facts.  But  the 
authority  of  this  principle  was  not  so  lasting  as  that  of 
its  physical  analogue.  Its  retention  was  inconsistent 
with  true  scientific  progress,  and  its  repudiation  was  the 
first  of  the  steps  which  made  chemistry  modern.  The 
cause  of  this  change  was  the  institution  of  pneumatic 


POSITIVE   SCIENCE  235 

chemistry  by  Black,  Priestley,  Cavendish,  and  Scheele, 
though  all  these  investigators  believed  implicitly  in  the 
phlogistic  theory. 

Modern  Theory  of  Combustion. — To  the  dis- 
coverers themselves  the  bearing  of  pneumatic  phenomena 
on  the  theory  of  combustion  was  not  apparent,  and 
indeed,  hydrogen  was  for  a  time  in  danger  of  being 
identified  with  phlogiston.  It  required  Lavoisier  to 
show  convincingly  that  the  phlogistic  doctrine  was 
superfluous  and  confusing.  He  proved  that  it  was 
rather  oxygen,  the  so-called  dephlogisticated  air,  which 
invariably  accompanied  combustion  by  uniting  with  the 
burning  bodies ;  he  endeavoured  to  identify  the  same 
element  as  the  principle  of  acidity ;  and  he  finally 
committed  to  oblivion  the  old  system  and  its  grotesque 
terminology,  by  helping  to  construct  and  introduce  the 
groundwork  of  modern  chemical  nomenclature. 

Institution  of  Modern  Chemistry. — The  revolution 
in  chemistry  was  as  English  in  inception,  as  French  in 
consummation,  and  as  European  in  extent  as  the 
revolution  in  politics.  It  was  also  nearly  as  pro- 
vocative of  conflict  between  Frenchmen  and  their 
neighbours.  Of  the  discoverers  who  gave  it  origin,  Black 
alone  lived  to  acquiesce  in  the  repudiation  of  phlogiston, 
while  Priestley  to  his  last  moments  continued  to  combat 
in  its  behalf.  In  the  controversy  which  attended  its 
propagation  Lavoisier  was  aided  by  Fourcroy,  Monge, 
Morveau,  and  BerthoUet ;  the  new  doctrines  were  styled 
the  French  system,  and  their  acceptance  was  enforced 
by  a  vigorous  onslaught  on  the  chemists  of  other 
countries.  The  book  of  one  able  defender  of  the  old 
theory,  that  of  the  Irishman,  Kirwan,  was  even  trans- 
lated into  French,  and  refuted  in  sections  by  Lavoisier 
and  his  associates.  But  the  advocates  of  the  old  opinions 
were  in  no  position  to  retard  seriously  the  victory  of 


236         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

truth.  Kirwan  himself  candidly  admitted  that  he  was 
overcome ;  and,  with  a  new  generation  of  chemists,  the 
Lavoisierian  doctrine  became  the  universally  accepted 
system.  It  only  remained  for  Davy  to  correct  the 
exaggerated  opinion  which  the  anti-phlogistic  school 
had  formed  of  the  functions  of  oxygen.  By  his 
discovery  that  chlorine  is  a  simple  substance,  he 
conclusively  refuted  the  theory  that  oxygen  is  the 
exclusive  principle  of  acidity — a  correction  which  Ber- 
thollet  maintained  on  the  ground  of  his  experiments  on 
sulphuretted  hydrogen  and  prussic  acid.  Indeed,  the 
history  of  synthetic  chemistry  at  this  critical  period  is 
to  be  read  in  the  names  given  to  chlorine  at  different 
junctures.  Scheele*s  original  name — dephlogisticated 
muriatic  acid — records  the  sway  of  Stahl's  system ; 
the  French  name — oxymuriatic  acid — indicates  the 
supremacy  of  oxygen  ;  while  Davy's  title,  derived  from 
the  colour  of  its  gas,  asserts  that  the  substance  is  an 
independent  element,  capable  though  it  is  to  support 
combustion  and  form  acid  matter,  which  could  not  be 
brought  within  Lavoisier's  generalization,  even  by  the 
power  of  electrolysis.* 

Theory  of  Multiple  Proportions. — Meanwhile 
analytical  inquiry  had  rapidly  advanced.  Owing  to 
the  labours  of  Bergman  and  Scheele,  of  Klaproth  and 
Vauquelin,  to  the  platinum  crucible  of  Wollaston,  and 
the  blowpipe  of  the  Swedes,  above  all,  to  the  attention 
attracted  to  the  indestructibility  of  matter,  and  the 
importance  conferred  on  the  use  of  the  balance  by 
Lavoisier's  innovations,  chemical  analysis  had  reached 
a  relatively  high  state  of  precision,  and  had  accumulated 
a  large  quantity  of  experimental  results.     But  no  theory 

•  Berzelius  was  the  latest  chemist  of  note  to  talk  of  oxidized  hydro- 
chloric acid,  while  his  cook  and  factotum  held  to  oxymuriatic  acid  still 
longer.     See  Dr.  Thorpe's  lecture  on  Wohler. 


POSITIVE   SCIENCE  237 

of  chemical  combination  invested  these  data  with 
quantitative  exactness,  or  regulated  the  relative  quan- 
tities of  the  constituents  necessary  to  produce  a  definite 
effect.  Current  opinion  on  the  subject  was  so  unsettled 
that  a  man  like  Berthollet  could  deliberately  affirm  that 
bodies  were  capable  of  uniting  with  each  other  in  all 
possible  proportions.  The  work  of  showing  that 
chemical  synthesis  takes  place  according  to  a  funda- 
mental law  of  quantitative  relation  was  only  performed 
by  Dalton  in  the  first  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
This  inquirer  proved  that  bodies  always  combine  in 
certain  definite  proportions,  that  each  element  has  a 
constant  weight  of  its  own,  and,  therefore,  that  it 
always  combines  in  multiple  proportions  of  this  weight. 
Dalton's  own  statement  of  his  theory  was  entirely 
founded  on  the  conception  of  primary  atomic  weights, 
the  relation  of  which  could  be  expressed  numerically. 
But  whatever  view  may  be  taken  by  latter-day  physics 
of  the  idea  of  primary  indivisible  atoms  of  different 
weights,  his  principle  of  multiple  proportions  introduced 
into  the  science  a  clearness  of  conception  which  was  of 
incalculable  importance  in  enabling  chemists  to  deal 
with  the  vast  quantity  of  data  yielded  by  modern 
laboratories,  and  it  originated  a  system  of  notation 
which  became  indispensable  to  scientific  intercourse.* 

Theory  of  Voltaic  Electricity. — Having  extended 
itself  to  the  borders  of  molecular  physics,  chemistry  was 
overtaken  by  another  science,  and  doubly  connected 
with   the   rest   of  the   scheme   of   human    knowledge. 

*  "Whatever  may  be  the  ultimate  fate  of  the  theory  which  found 
deliberate  expression  in  the  New  System  of  Chemical  Philosophy, ^^  says 
Dr.  Thorpe, — "  and  no  one  can  say  that  it  is  not  destined  to  give  place  to 
a  higher  and  even  nobler  generalization,  which  shall  more  clearly  connect 
matter  with  the  forces  associated  with  it — it  is  certain  that  the  ages  to  come 
will  reckon  it  as  the  central,  dominant  conception  which  has  actuated  the 
chemistry  of  the  nineteenth  century." 


238         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

During  the  eighteenth  century  the  study  of  electrical 
phenomena  had  been  prosecuted  with  great  diligence 
and  success,  and  the  invention  of  the  voltaic  pile  enabled 
chemists  to  claim  electric  force  as  a  part  of  their  province. 
In  1800  Nicholson  and  Carlisle  discovered  that  the  energy 
of  the  pile  could  decompose  water  into  its  chemical  con- 
stituents. Other  experimenters  soon  extended  this 
power  of  electricity  over  other  substances.  Davy 
made  it  his  special  business  to  identify  the  action  of 
the  galvanic  battery  with  chemical  action.  By  a  num- 
ber of  well-contrived  experiments  he  demonstrated  that 
"amongst  the  substances  that  combine  chemically,  all 
those,  the  electrical  energies  of  which  are  well  known, 
exhibit  opposite  states ; "  and  he  asked  whether  from 
this  relation  of  electrical  energy  to  chemical  affinity  it 
may  not  be  supposed  that  they  are  identical  and  "  an 
essential  property  of  matter."  This  statement  was 
made  in  his  famous  Bakerian  lecture  of  1806.  Twenty 
years  afterwards  he  found  that  his  experimental  results 
had  in  great  measure  been  anticipated  by  Berzelius  and 
Hisinger,  and  that  the  branch  of  chemistry  of  which  he 
had  helped  to  lay  the  foundation  had  meanwhile  obtained 
greater  speculative  importance.  Thus  had  been  induced 
a  hope,  as  he  said,  that  "many  of  the  corpuscular  changes, 
now  obscure,  will  ultimately  be  found  to  depend  upon 
the  same  causes,  and  to  be  governed  by  the  same  laws." 
The  Theological  Stage  of  Geological  Knowledge. 
— In  those  branches  of  physical  research  which  so  far 
have  come  under  review,  the  construction  of  positive 
theory  proceeds  on  the  sure  grounds  of  observation, 
experiment,  and  verifiable  calculation.  But  in  other 
departments  of  inductive  science  which  possess  equal 
claims  to  be  founded  on  sound  generalizations,  experi- 
ments are  rarely  obtainable,  the  scope  of  observation 
is  restricted,   and   mathematical   calculation   is   almost 


POSITIVE   SCIENCE  239 

inapplicable.  Such  sciences  are  those  which  deal  with 
the  constitution  of  our  globe  and  the  laws  of  organic 
life.  These  studies,  moreover,  appeared  to  be  more 
closely  concerned  with  man's  own  nature  and  position 
than  any  others  of  a  physical  character,  and,  accord- 
ingly, they  furnished  a  greater  than  common  proportion 
of  visionary  hypotheses  to  retard  the  development  of 
practicable  theory.  In  the  eighteenth  century  geology 
suffered  especial  disadvantage  from  these  circumstances. 
Though  many  observers,  of  whom  the  greater  number 
were  Italians,  ably  endeavoured  to  explain  several  of 
the  phenomena  of  the  earth's  crust  by  known  causes, 
every  comprehensive  scheme  of  geological  history 
became  entangled  in  the  miraculous  as  soon  as  the 
supposed  periods  of  the  creation  and  deluge  were 
reached.  Geology,  indeed,  was  so  much  subjected  to 
the  control  of  natural  theologians  that  it  was  regarded 
rather  as  an  illustration  in  orthodox  cosmogonies  than 
as  a  subject  for  serious  scientific  investigation.  Its 
abasement  seemed  the  more  assured  because  men 
refused  to  connect  it  with  the  pursuit  of  utility.  Hence 
they  sanctioned  the  more  readily  its  exclusive  employ- 
ment by  theologians  because  they  supposed  it  to  be  an 
entirely  speculative  study,  and  therefore  the  lawful 
property  of  those  to  whose  speculative  interests  it  could 
best  be  adapted. 

The  Stratigraphical  Treatment  of  Geology. — This 
attitude  of  indifference  was  only  disturbed  as  the 
practical  importance  of  mineralogy  became  better 
understood  and  its  connection  with  geology  received 
demonstration.  In  fact,  if  the  founding  of  modern 
geology  be  defined  as  the  work  of  first  exciting  the 
interest  of  the  European  public  in  the  study  of  geo- 
logical formations,  the  father  of  the  science  must  be 
reputed  to  have  been  a  professor  in  the  School  of  Mines 


240         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

at  Freiburg.  It  was,  indeed,  the  success  of  Werner  in 
presenting  the  structure  of  the  earth's  crust  as  a  subject 
of  paramount  practical  importance  that  enlisted  the 
first  large  body  of  students  in  geological  investigation, 
and  it  was  his  personal  charm  and  enthusiasm  which 
induced  his  pupils  to  regard  their  study  as  a  sublime 
science.  Werner  established  his  school  during  the  last 
quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century,  when  the  tender  age 
of  geology  permitted  the  reproduction  from  earlier  times 
of  a  master's  power  over  the  minds  of  his  followers. 
Yet  his  own  contribution  to  positive  geological  theory 
was  commensurate  neither  with  his  extraordinary  per- 
ception of  mineralogical  details  nor  with  his  love  of 
discursive  views.  He  was,  however,  at  least  instru- 
mental in  giving  a  wide  circulation  to  the  fact,  well 
known  to  many  earlier  geologists,  that  the  strata  of  the 
earth's  crust  have  certain  constant  relations  to  one 
another  in  order  of  superposition  over  the  primary 
unstratified  rock.  Moreover,  according  to  some  testi- 
mony, he  taught  his  pupils  to  discriminate  the  different 
formations  by  the  fossils  they  contain,  and  to  perceive 
that  the  more  recent  the  formation,  the  nearer  the  fossil 
remains  resemble  the  beings  of  the  present  world. 

Positive  Theory  in  Geology. — On  the  other  hand, 
Werner's  etiological  speculations  and  assumptions 
seriously  impaired  the  progress  of  scientific  opinion. 
Contending  that  the  igneous  rocks  were  aqueous  pre- 
cipitates, postulating  at  his  pleasure  the  operation  of 
unknown  causes,  and  suspending  when  convenient  the 
existence  of  present  conditions,  he  led  his  disciples  to 
deny  the  obvious  inferences  of  more  sagacious  observers. 
But  while  he  was  thus  depraving  the  imaginations  of 
his  pupils,  a  Scottish  geologist  was  quietly  working  out 
a  rigorous  method  of  observation,  deduction,  and  com- 
parison.    Hutton   discarded   alike   speculation   on   the 


POSITIVE  SCIENCE  241 

origin  of  things  and  conjectures  about  obsolete  causes. 
"Nunc  naturalem  causam  quaerimus  et  assiduam,  non 
raram  et  fortuitam,"  was  the  maxim  which  guided  his 
investigations.     Assuming  only  the  operation  of  exist- 
ing forces,  he  applied  them  to  explain  the  structures 
discovered    by    investigation,     and    having    ascended 
through   particulars  to  his  conclusions,  he   descended 
again   and   verified    them    by   comparison   with   more 
extended  observations.     He  thus  arrived  at  a  theory 
of  the  earth  which,  though  imperfectly  developed  by 
himself,  provided  a  positive  basis  for  geological  science. 
His  severe  exclusion  of  hypothetical  causes  led  him  to 
assign  immense  periods  of  time  to  the  different  pro- 
cesses of  formation.     Prompted  by  the  suggestions  of 
Black,  and  warranted  by  the  chemical  experiments  of 
Sir  James  Hall,  he  applied  the  principle  of  pressure  to 
modify  the  effects  of  heat  on  the  rocks  which  had  been 
fused  beneath  the  sea.     Constant  to  his  belief  that  we 
have  neither  evidence  of  a  beginning  nor  prospect  of  an 
end,  he  maintained  that  no  order  of  rocks  betrayed  a 
genuinely  primitive  character.     Even  the  granite  of  the 
mountains  he  determined  to  be  of  a  derivative  nature. 
To  him,  at  any  rate,  the  cycle  of  formation  and  decay — 
the  constant  decomposition  by  mechanical  and  chemical 
causes,  the  accumulation  of  waste  into  strata  beneath 
the  seas,  their  fusion  into  solid  masses  by  heat  when 
not  permitted  to   retain   their   sedimentary  character, 
their  elevations  and  distortions  by  volcanic  force — pre- 
sented no  element  of  absolute  inception.* 

*  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  founders  of  the  Geological  Society 
of  London  in  1807  were  actuated  not  by  zeal  for  the  construction  of 
theories,  but  by  a  general  desire  to  collect  facts  and  by  special  interest  in 
the  new  French  views  on  crystallography.  These  views  formed  the  basis 
of  the  modern  science.  Rome  Delisle  showed,  in  1783,  that  the  angle  of 
inclination  of  the  faces  of  primitive  crystalline  forms  remains  constant  in 
the  same  species  of  mineral.  Bergman  noticed  how  the  planes  of  cleavage 
R 


242         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

Intellectual  Influence  of  Scientific  Geology. — In 
the  intellectual  development  of  Europe  during  the  last 
hundred  years,  no  idea  so  powerfully  assisted  in  the 
emancipation  of  men's  minds  as  did  this  natnralistic 
conception  of  the  being  of  the  world.  Hutton's  prin- 
ciples were  widely  advertised  by  the  exposition  of 
Playfair ;  they  only  needed  to  be  corrected  and  extended 
by  one  who  was  in  possession  of  all  attainable  facts. 
Their  general  reception,  however,  depended  on  the 
abandonment  of  traditional  prejudices  respecting  the 
age  of  the  world.  As  long  as  men  preferred  to  invoke 
the  intervention  of  catastrophes  rather  than  rely  on  the 
protracted  operation  of  known  causes,  geological  theory 
could  not  but  be  more  imaginary  than  positive.  Such 
a  preference  was  entertained  with  inconceivable  tenacity 
in  various  quarters  till  a  comparatively  recent  date.  So 
far  as  the  development  of  the  science  was  affected,  it 
did  not  long  survive  the  publication  of  Lyell's  great 
work  in  1830.  The  chief  cause  which  prepared  for  the 
surrender  of  the  old  cosmogonies  likewise  dates  from 
the  period  under  review,  and  it  furnished  irresistible 
evidence  not  only  in  behalf  of  positive  geological  theory, 
but  in  behalf  of  reasoned  biological  doctrine. 

The   Origin    of   Palaeontology. — William     Smith 

throw  light  on  the  building  up  of  minerals  from  simple  crystalline  forms. 
Haiiy,  however,  methodically  reduced  the  structure  of  crystals  to  com- 
pounds of  primitive  forms.  He  successfully  proved  that  crystalline 
formation  takes  place  according  to  law,  and  consequently  that  geometrical 
form  may  be  a  test  of  the  nature  of  substances  : — a  conclusion  which  Haiiy 
illustrated  by  forecasting,  from  his  observation  of  a  difference  in  the  angles 
of  specimens  supposed  to  be  the  same  mineral,  the  discovery  of  Vauquelin 
by  chemical  analysis,  that  in  one  case  baryta  was  present,  and  in  the  other 
strontia.  The  study  of  cleavages  and  angles  was  greatly  facilitated  by 
Wollaston's  reflecting  goniometer  j  but  soon  the  importance  of  the  axes  of 
crystals  was  insisted  upon  by  Weiss  and  Mohs,  and  crystallography  became 
less  associated  with  molecular  hypotheses  and  more  connected  with  optical 
science. 


POSITIVE   SCIENCE  MS 

and,  in  a  lesser  degree,  Werner,  had  exhibited  the 
manner  in  which  fossils  are  characteristic  of  the  strata 
they  occupy,  and  how  by  their  means  the  relative  ages 
of  different  beds  may  be  determined.  Fossils  being 
granted  to  be  really  remains  of  past  life  on  the  earth, 
it  followed  that  the  series  of  strata  must  have  been  laid 
down  during  lapses  of  time  sufficient  to  permit  the 
growth  of  a  succession  of  organic  forms.  Now,  even 
in  matters  of  geology  the  nineteenth  century  was  not 
prepared  to  follow  its  predecessors  and  assume  imaginary 
causes  to  account  for  the  presence  of  fossils.*  Gradually 
it  was  admitted  that  organic  remains  implied  the  efflux 
of  considerable  periods  of  time  during  the  stratification 
of  the  earth's  crust.  **  It  is  abundantly  obvious,"  Cuvier 
affirmed  in  the  most  popular  work  on  geology  of  the 
time,  "that  it  is  to  these  fossil  remains  alone  that  we 
owe  even  the  commencement  of  a  theory  of  the  earth, 
and  that  without  them  we  should,  perhaps,  never  have 
even  suspected  that  there  existed  any  successive  epochs 
and  a  series  of  different  operations  in  the  formation  of 
the  globe."  "The  application  of  botanical  and  zoo- 
logical evidence,"  wrote  Humboldt  in  1844,  "to  deter- 
mine the  relative  age  of  rocks — this  chronometry  of  the 
earth's  surface  which  was  already  present  to  the  lofty 
mind  of  Hooke — indicates  one  of  the  most  glorious 
epochs  of  modern  geognosy,  which  has  finally,  on  the 
Continent  at  least,  been  emancipated  from  the  sway  of 
Semitic  doctrines."  But  how  immeasurable  were  these 
periods  could  only  be  demonstrated  as  the  circumstances 
attending  the  generation  of  a  series  of  organic  forms 
were  better  understood.     Hence  it  was  a  coincidence  of 

*  "  Even  in  1765,"  says  Sir  Archibald  Geikie,  "  the  controversy  about 
*  figured  stones '  had  not  yet  died  out,  and  there  were  still  not  a  few 
observers  who  continued  to  believe  that  the  apparent  shells  found  in  the 
rocks  of  the  land  never  really  belonged  to  living  creatures." 


244        HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

no  small  moment  that  about  this  time  the  higher  pro- 
blems of  biology  engaged  the  attention  of  the  great 
French  naturalists,  and  that  at  the  same  time  the 
discovery  of  a  large  quantity  of  fossils  in  the  Paris  basin 
brought  into  prominence  the  palaeontological  aspect  of 
the  problem  of  species.* 

Speculative  Biology. — The  theory  of  evolution  has 
been  placed  only  in  our  own  time  on  a  positive  basis, 
and  it  is  impossible  to  claim  an  equal  rank  for  the 
suggestions  of  earlier  inquiries.  Yet  the  formation  of 
the  solar  system  from  an  original  vapour,  and  the 
development  of  the  earth's  crust  by  continuous  change, 
were  maintained  with  considerable  force  during  the 
period  under  review.  It  was  likewise  with  evolution  in 
biology.  The  speculations  of  Geoffroy  St.  Hilaire, 
Lamarck,  Goethe,  and  von  Baer  constituted  an  inter- 
mediate stage  in  the  train  of  thought,  which  surely 
conducted  men  from  the  study  of  comparative  anatomy 
to  our  present  views  of  the  phenomena  of  life.  Like 
the  dynamic  theory  of  heat,  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
in  biology,  though  adumbrated  by  previous  thinkers, 
now  received  its  first  reasoned  statement,  to  be  in 
another  generation  extended  and  verified  by  inductive 
research  till  it  yielded  positive  laws  of  the  highest 
order. 

Early  History  of  the  Theory  of  Evolution. — In 

*  At  this  time  Cuvier  could  justly  say :  "  Tant  de  travaux  et  des 
resultats  si  heureux  dans  la  partie  philosophique  de  la  zoologie  autorisent 
bien  h.  dire  qu'elle  est  en  quelque  sorte  aujourd'hui  une  science  frangaise. 
Appliquees  un  jour  k  toutes  les  especes  dans  un  ouvrage  general,  nos 
methodes  obtiendront  bientot  une  influence  universelle." 

To-day  French  writers  claim  yet  more.  "La  France,"  says  M. 
Tannery,  "pendant  la  periode  qui  nous  occupe,  nes'eleve  pas  seulement  au 
premier  rang  pour  les  sciences  mathematiques  et  physiques  ;  sa  suprematie 
s'affirme  egalement  dans  les  sciences  naturelles,  et  dans  ce  domaine  elle  se 
trouve  encore  moins  contestee  "  {a^ud,  Histoire  GhUrale^  tome  ix.,  ed.  by 
Lavisse  and  Rambaud). 


POSITIVE   SCIENCE  246 

botany  the  natural  system  of  classification  of  the  two 
Jussieus  had  already  introduced  the  idea  of  close 
relationship  among  species,  when  Goethe  pointed  out 
with  success,  as  C  Wolff  had  done  thirty  years  before 
in  vain,  that  the  structure  of  plants  was  explicable  as  a 
metamorphosis  and  repetition  of  a  single  original  form 
— the  leaf  around  an  axis.  In  the  first  decade  of  the 
nineteenth  century  Laniarck  perceived  a  like  resem- 
blance among  animal  organisms,  and  maintained  that 
all  species  of  living  bodies  are  descended  from  a  few 
simpler  forms.  Dwelling  upon  the  slight  gradations 
which  separate  the  members  in  the  scale  of  organic  life, 
and  the  results  produced  by  artificial  selection,  he 
accounted  for  the  variations  now  obtaining  in  nature 
by  the  influence  of  different  foods  and  climates,  and  the 
effects  of  persistent  exercise,  operating  through  many 
generations  of  hereditary  transmission.  St.  Hilaire 
declared  that  living  beings  were  constructed  after  one 
plan,  and  that  their  different  organs  were  merely  modifi- 
cations of  an  original  type.  He  remarked  that  some 
parts  occurred  in  all  animals,  though  greatly  differing 
in  their  mode  of  development ;  he  further  noticed  that 
these  parts  always  exist  in  the  same  relation  to  one 
another ;  and  he  interpreted  the  presence  of  superfluous 
organs  as  rudimentary  survivals  of  what  had  been  useful 
to  pre-existing  species.  With  Goethe  he  entertained , 
the  belief  that  the  superior  development  of  one  part  or 
organ  is  compensated  by  inferior  development  of  other 
parts.  And  Goethe,  not  content  with  throwing  out 
formative  ideas,  confirmed  the  doctrine  of  homology  by 
discovering  that  the  intermaxillary  bone  of  the  lower 
animals  exists  in  a  rudimentary  form  in  man ;  and  he 
drew  attention  to  serial  homologies,  or  comparisons  of 
different  parts  or  organs  in  the  same  individual,  by  show- 
ing that  the  skull  of  vertebrates  is  only  a  development 


246         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

of  a  certain  number  of  vertebrae.*  To  the  study  of 
homologies,  thus  initiated,  Goethe  gave  the  name  of 
morphology,  which  has  now  come  to  denote  that  wider 
department  of  natural  history  which  Darwin  called  "  its 
very  soul."  f 

Persistence  of  Teleological  Conceptions  in 
Biology. — Yet  the  hypothesis  of  special  creations 
remained  unshaken  by  the  theory  of  derivative  species. 
Resistance  in  its  behalf  was  advanced  from  all  quarters, 
and  from  none  so  effectually  as  from  the  naturalist  who 
did  most  to  supply  facts  for  the  ultimate  establishment 
of  the  doctrine  of  evolution.  The  wide  and  profound 
investigations  of  Cuvier  introduced  a  new  classification 
of  the  animal  kingdom,  founded  on  resemblances  of 
morphological  type  and  homology.  But  so  impressed 
was  he  by  the  apparent  organization  of  animal  structures 
towards  a  final  cause,  that  he  would  not  abandon  the 

*  Writing  to  Knebel  in  1784,  when  his  essay  on  the  intermaxillary 
bone  was  composed,  though  it  was  not  published  till  thirty  years  later, 
Goethe  said:  *'  I  have  refrained  from  indicating  the  logical  outcome  of  the 
discovery — it  is  a  truth  which  Herder  has  already  printed  in  his  Ideen,  viz. 
that  the  distinctness  of  man  from  the  brute  is  not  to  be  looked  for  in  any 
single  point  of  difference.  .  .  .  Every  creature  is  a  note,  a  shade,  in  a  great 
harmony,  and  the  study  which  apprehends  this  harmony  as  a  whole  and 
in  its  vastness  is  alone  fruitful ;  each  isolated  thing,  otherwise  taken,  is 
a  meaningless  letter."  Goethe  was  equally  advanced  in  his  opinions  on 
geology,  which  he  had  been  led  to  study  by  his  official  duties  at  the  mines. 
His  scientific  reputation,  however,  greatly  suffered  from  his  mistaken 
theory  of  optics. 

t  The  tendency  of  morphology  to  trace  species  to  a  common  origin  was 
strengthened  by  comparative  embryology  in  the  hands  of  von  Baer,  who 
later  in  the  century  showed  that  up  to  certain  stages  of  their  development 
the  special  forms  of  the  most  diverse  animals  are  concealed  in  a  general 
resemblance,  that  the  process  of  differentiation  starts  from  points  in- 
distinguishable from  phases  in  the  life  of  lower  organisms,  and,  by  his 
discovery  of  the  ovarian  ovum  of  mammals,  that  the  origin  of  these 
animals  is  similar  to  that  of  others  lower  in  the  scale.  Meanwhile  Bichat 
had  opened  the  way  for  the  refinements  of  the  cell-theory <  by  analyzing  the 
animal  organism  into  a  series  of  simple  tissues  possessing  definite  structural 
characters. 


POSITIVE  SCIENCE  247 

traditional  belief  that  species  were  created  with  the 
particular  purpose  of  fitting  them  for  their  conditions  of 
life.  In  his  controversy  with  St.  Hilaire,  the  state  of 
science  at  that  time  enabled  him  to  claim  victory ;  his 
theory  of  types  became  generally  accepted,  and  zoo- 
logical research  continued  to  be  mainly  empirical. 
Convinced  that  every  organized  being  forms  a  complete 
system  within  itself,  exactly  adapted  to  a  certain  habit 
of  life,  Cuvier  deduced  from  the  most  slender  data  the 
structure  which  an  animal  must  have  possessed  in 
order  to  conserve  itself  under  the  conditions  and  limita- 
tions indicated  by  the  evidence  at  command.  Hence, 
by  employing  the  method  of  Zadig,  he  was  able  to  discern 
the  nature  of  the  fossil  remains  exhumed  near  Paris, 
and  to  bring  them  into  comparison  with  the  structures 
of  living  beings.  Hitherto  marine  fossils  had  not 
supplied  positive  evidence  that  in  past  times  species 
existed  which  do  not  live  at  the  present  day,  for  it  was 
impossible  to  say  certainly  that  the  like  did  not  inhabit 
some  remote  parts  of  the  ocean.  But  Cuvier  had  the 
remains  of  large  land  and  river  animals  to  deal  with, 
and  from  them  he  proved,  with  the  assistance  of 
Brongniart,  that  a  series  of  extinct  beings  had  once 
inhabited  the  globe  during  a  succession  of  geological 
periods,  and  that  these  creatures  bore  evident  morpho- 
logical resemblance  to  one  another  and  to  animals  of 
the  present  day.  Thus,  though  he  himself  remained 
confident  that  lacunae  in  the  sequence  of  organic  de- 
velopment manifested  the  intervention  of  special  crea- 
tions, though  he  would  affirm  that  none  of  the  agents 
which  Nature  now  employs  would  have  been  sufficient  for 
the  production  of  her  ancient  works,  he  virtually  created 
the  science  of  palaeontology,  which,  as  Huxley  said,  would 
in  our  own  generation  have  been  obliged  to  invent  the 
doctrine  of  evolution  if  it  had  not  already  existed. 


248         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

Relation  between  Science  and  Philosophy. — 
While  the  advance  of  inductive  science  towards  a  system 
of  positive  theory  is  calculated  to  expand  men's  views 
of  speculative  problems,  it  is  equally  serviceable  in 
setting  forth  the  line  of  demarcation  which  separates 
the  province  of  physical  knowledge  from  the  domain  of 
metaphysics.  As  they  become  more  complete,  the 
explanations  of  science  repose  more  directly  on  space 
and  time  of  indefinite  extent,  they  tend  to  divide  matter 
more  and  more  minutely,  and  they  more  successfully 
reduce  phenomena  to  simple  expressions  of  force.  Yet 
it  is  the  essential  nature  of  these  means  of  explanation 
that  they  are  in  themselves  inexplicable  by  science. 
Organized  life,  too,  is  seen  to  elude  more  and  more 
hopelessly  the  reach  of  merely  mechanical  conceptions 
as  the  difference  between  selective  aggregation  in  the 
growth  of  crystals  and  the  evolution  of  species  and 
intelligence  in  the  animal  world  is  rendered  more 
apparent.  More  important  still,  the  relation  of  cause 
and  effect,  the  fundamental  principle  of  all  scientific 
investigation,  is  found  on  examination  to  be  merely  a 
mental  prejudice,  if  the  evidence  of  sense  alone  is 
admitted  ;  while  if  testimony  from  other  quarters  be 
permitted  to  invest  the  nexus  with  intrinsic  reality,  the 
truths  of  science  are  made  contingent  on  a  first  cause, 
or  are  swallowed  up  in  the  mysteries  of  infinite 
regression. 

The  Problem  of  Philosophy. — Now  it  is  the  part 
of  philosophy  to  consider  the  numerous  problems  which 
are  thus  left  outstanding  by  the  methods  of  science  ; 
but  the  history  of  philosophy  has,  for  the  most  part, 
remained  independent  of  the  history  of  science.  Such 
is  the  nature  of  the  human  mind  that,  till  very  recently 
in  the  development  of  the  race,  men  have  felt  far  more 
concern  about  the  ultimate  nature  of  things  than  about 


CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY  U9 

the  phenomenal  laws  of  common  experience.  Thus 
philosophical  and  religious  thought  have  hitherto  held 
a  position  of  great  individual  importance.  During  the 
eighteenth  century,  though  the  progress  of  science  most 
immediately  influenced  current  opinions,  philosophy 
still  pursued  a  course  of  its  own,  and  continued  to  carry 
on  the  discussion  which  those,  who  devote  attention 
to  the  highest  problems  of  existence,  render  sooner  or 
later  of  effect  in  the  march  of  civilization.  One  aspect 
of  its  development,  it  is  true,  was  connected  with  the 
views  which  obtained  support  from  material  science  ; 
but  this  was  only  a  one-sided  application  of  Locke's 
doctrines,  while  philosophy  itself  was  following  the 
impulses  which  Locke  and  Descartes  together  had  com- 
municated to  it.  The  main  problem  of  philosophy  was 
then,  as  it  had  been  since  the  downfall  of  scholasticism, 
to  determine  the  conditions  and  worth  of  experience. 
All  speculative  questions  were  seen  to  centre  in  the 
inquiry,  How  is  knowledge  possible  ?  How  can  there 
be  any  commerce  between  two  such  heterogeneous 
existences  as  mind  and  matter?  How  can  we  have 
any  confidence  in  the  result  of  such  commerce  ?  What, 
in  short,  is  the  relation  between  subject  and  object  ? 

Kant's  New  Point  of  View. — In  178 1  appeared 
Kant's  Critique  of  Pure  Reason*  This  book  perma- 
nently changed  the  conditions  of  speculative  inquiry, 
and  placed  the  theory  of  knowledge  in  such  a  position 
that  to  this  day  the  would-be  philosopher  must  reckon 
with  the  great  thinker  of  Konigsberg  before  he  can 
claim  to  consider  pertinently  the  first  principles  of 
existence.  Kant  united  in  himself  the  two  partial  and 
conflicting  tendencies  of  thought  which  prevailed  in 
England  and  Germany.     The  academic  routine  of  his 

♦  For  an  elementary  account  of  Kant's  metaphysics,  see  my  Students' 
Introduction  to  Critical  Philosophy^ 


250        HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

youth  acquainted  him  with  the  body  of  logical  ab- 
stractions which  Wolff  had  developed  from  Leibniz's 
suggestions.  By  his  own  exertions  Xant  ascertained 
their  vanity  ;  and  when  English  sensationalism  appeared 
to  be  the  true  alternative,  his  study  of  Hume  apprised 
him  of  its  inability  to  support  the  fabric  of  our  ex- 
perience as  we  conceive  it  to  be.  Convinced  that 
philosophy  up  to  that  time  had  failed,  he  suspected 
that  its  subject-matter  might  have  been  stated  wrongly. 
To  quote  again  his  oft-repeated  description  of  his  inno- 
vation, he  proposed  to  do  "just  what  Copernicus  did  in 
attempting  to  explain  the  celestial  movements.  When 
he  found  that  he  could  make  no  progress  by  assuming 
that  all  the  heavenly  bodies  moved  round  the  spectator, 
he  reversed  the  process  and  tried  the  experiment  of 
assuming  that  the  spectator  revolved  while  the  stars 
remained  at  rest."  As  Copernicus  reversed  with 
success  the  standpoint  of  the  Ptolemaic  system,  so  Kant 
hoped  to  succeed  in  solving  the  questions  of  meta- 
physics by  abjuring  both  the  individual's  ideas  and 
sensations  as  the  ultimate  truth  of  reality,  and  by 
assuming  that,  instead  of  the  mind  being  formed  by 
experience,  the  mind  itself  should  form  received 
experience  according  to  its  own  laws. 

The  Critical  Method. — According  to  Kant  we  must 
suppose  that  in  our  experience  thought  contributes 
sundry  relations,  subject  to  which  all  our  empirical 
knowledge  must  be  received.  Now,  if  this  prove  to  be 
the  case,  these  indispensable  elements  will  be  forms  of 
synthesis  or  relation  ;  and  since  experience  is  impossible 
without  them,  they  will  be  a  priori  or  prior  to  experience 
itself.  Kant  calls  such  d,  priori  elements  transcendental, 
and  his  philosophy  consists  in  a  transcendental  criticism 
which  endeavours  to  bring  to  light  all  the  i  priori  prin- 
ciples of  synthesis  which  serve  as  the  ground-plan  of 


CRITICAL   PHILOSOPHY  251 

experience.  And  whatever  may  be  thought  of  Kant's 
success  in  his  efforts  to  do  this,  he  himself  entertained 
no  doubt  that,  to  quote  one  of  the  last  sentences  of  his 
first  critique,  "  Der  kritische  Weg  ist  allein  noch  offen." 
Extensive  Influence  of  the  Critical  Philosophy. — 
From  the  point  of  view  of  general  history  the  intro- 
duction of  the  transcendental  method  into  philosophy 
is  of  more  importance  on  account  of  its  negative  power 
than  in  virtue  of  its  positive  developments.  Kant 
himself  said  that  "as  the  world  has  never  been,  and 
doubtless  never  will  be,  without  some  kind  of  meta- 
physic  ...  it  is  the  first  and  weightiest  concern  of 
philosophy  to  render  it  powerless  for  harm  by  closing 
up  the  sources  of  error."  He  did  not  succeed  in  imposing 
upon  the  world  a  new  system ;  and  though  for  a  time 
his  countrymen  imagined  that  wisdom  consisted  in 
acquaintance  with  his  doctrines,  his  direct  influence  was 
soon  intercepted  by  the  efforts  of  those  who  endeavoured 
to  extend  his  method  beyond  the  barriers  which  he  had 
erected.  But  his  criticism  of  knowledge  afforded  ample 
defence  against  dogmatism  of  all  schools.  If  he  showed 
that  our  intellectual  conceptions  are  good  only  for  our 
phenomenal  world,  he  still  more  conclusively  demon- 
strated the  futility  of  endeavouring  to  explain  by  our 
sensations  the  nature  of  those  relations  which  form  the 
basis  of  experience  and  are  implied  in  the  very  fact 
of  sensation.  Not  that  his  protests  were  everywhere 
successful.  The  indiscretions  of  those  who  sought  to 
extend  and  develop  the  transcendental  method  gave 
occasion  to  lengthened  neglect  of  his  admonitions  among 
the  psychologists,  who  supposed  that  on  an  empirical 
analysis  of  mental  phenomena  a  metaphysic  of  existence 
can  be  based.  And,  in  any  case,  to  reach  those  minds, 
which  are  naturally  inclined  to  mistake  empirical 
psychology  for  an  adequate  philosophy,  would  not  have 


25^         HISTORY   OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

been  easy  without  employing  a  more  persuasive  style 
of  exposition.  Nevertheless,  it  is  to  Kant's  argument 
that  we  should  trace  the  successful  resistance  to  the 
teachings  of  sensationalism  and  materialism  which  came 
to  us  from  the  eighteenth  century.  Though  strangely 
disguised  in  the  process  of  repeated  transfer,  and  fre- 
quently in  anomalous  alliance  with  the  impulsive  asser- 
tions of  common  sense,  his  contentions  passed  from 
thinker  to  thinker,  and  were  ever  ready  on  urgent  occa- 
sion to  combat  the  pretensions  of  those  who  presume  to 
philosophize  without  metaphysics.  For  a  time  this  part 
of  his  influence  was  the  less  prominent  because  the 
intellectual  reaction  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  protected  the  old  faiths  from  serious  harm. 
Later,  a  generation  arose  which  knew  not  Kant,  perse- 
cuted his  successors,  and  demanded  only  the  means  to 
build  up  the  fabric  of  material  science.  But  now,  when 
these  very  physical  methods  themselves  are  at  all  points 
reversing  vulgar  conceptions  of  knowledge,  a  return  to 
Kant  commends  itself  to  all  circumspect  thinkers  as 
the  best  preparation  for  a  sound  apprehension  of  the 
problems  of  existence.  It  would  appear  that  after  more 
than  a  century's  unremitting  service  to  sober  thinking, 
his  criticism  will  be  the  chief  discipline  which  our 
generation  will  derive  in  its  eager  search  through  the 
history  of  philosophy  for  aid  in  dealing  with  new 
versions  of  old  questions. 

Kant's  Treatment  of  Ethics  and  Religion. — The 
Critique  of  Pure  Reason  placed  out  of  the  range  of 
human  knowledge  the  objects  which,  as  moral  agents, 
men  are  accustomed  to  regard  with  veneration.  It 
denied  that  men  can  know  anything  of  God,  self,  or 
will ;  but  it  coupled  this  denial  with  the  reservation  that 
what  is  speculatively  unknowable  may  be  apprehended 
practically.      In   succeeding   works   Kant   brought   his 


CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY  253 

transcendental  method  to  bear  on  the  metaphysics  of 
practice.  Analyzing  the  faculty  which  he  called  the 
practical  reason,  as  he  had  formerly  analyzed  what  he 
called  pure  reason,  he  affirmed  that  he  found  practically 
postulated  therein  the  objects  of  whose  existence  specu- 
lative thought  could  know  nothing.  The  moral  law, 
free  will,  and  God  were  represented  to  be  practical 
truths  of  reason,  which  men  must  respect  in  deed, 
though  they  be  hidden  from  knowledge. 

Kant's  Moral  Influence. — This  application  of  the 
critical  method  has  not  in  itself  been  productive  of  great 
philosophical  consequences,  though  it  furnished  the  clue 
to  those  who  sought  to  develop  transcendentalism  into 
a  system.  But  for  the  German  people  it  was  a  mighty 
adjuration  to  live  only  for  its  better  self  Kant's  great 
work  had  made  him  the  most  influential  thinker  in 
Germany  when  his  theory  of  ethics  proclaimed  with 
stern  insistence  that  man  possessed  within  himself  a 
moral  law,  a  categorical  imperative,  which  was  the  sole 
legitimate  arbiter  of  conduct.  This  announcement  was 
made  also  when  the  sophistries  of  popular  philosophy 
and  a  nerveless  enlightenment  from  abroad  had  put  to 
shame  faith  in  lofty  purpose  and  high  ideals.  To  such 
an  age,  said  Schiller,  unworthy  as  it  was  to  receive  a 
Solon,  Kant  was  a  Draco.  He  held  up  to  it  the  moral 
law  of  reason  as  the  only  guide  of  life,  and  forbade 
conduct  to  pursue  pleasure  here  or  happiness  hereafter. 
The  will  is  free,  he  said,  because  "  thou  oughtst "  implies 
'*thou  canst:"  the  self  lives  beyond  this  life  because 
otherwise  our  wills  could  never  be  brought  into  harmony 
with  the  law;  and  God  exists  because  no  other  power 
could  mete  out  to  virtue  that  reward  of  happiness  which 
reason  knows  it  to  deserve ;  but  it  is  the  moral  law  in 
its  purity,  untouched  by  thought  of  selfish  satisfaction, 
unmoved  by  worship  of  the   Deity,  which   alone   can 


254         HISTORY   OF   MODERN   EUROPE 

produce  through  the  will  truly  good  action.  As  the 
categorical  imperative  —  the  command  to  man  as  a 
rational  being  to  act  as  if  the  maxim  of  his  action  could 
become,  and  were  to  become  by  his  will,  a  universal 
law  of  nature — is  the  logical  ground  for  the  ideas  of 
freedotti,  immortality,  and  God,  so  is  obedience  to  it 
leal  only  when  tendered  for  its  own  sake.  "  Nothing," 
says  Kant,  "  could  be  more  fatal  to  morality  than  that 
we  should  wish  to  derive  it  from  examples.  For  every 
example  of  it  that  is  set  before  me  must  be  first  itself 
tested  by  principles  of  morality,  whether  it  is  worthy  to 
serve  as  an  original  example,  Le.  as  a  pattern  ;  but  by 
no  means  can  it  authoritatively  furnish  the  conception  of 
morality.  Even  the  Holy  One  of  the  Gospels  must  first 
be  compared  with  our  ideal  of  moral  perfection  before 
we  can  recognize  Him  as  such." 

Dogma  and  the  Moral  Law. — While,  therefore,  Kant 
braced  the  moral  consciousness  of  the  German  people  by 
his  sublime  conception  of  duty,  and  bequeathed  to  them 
the  spirit  which  was  to  find  articulate  utterance  in 
Fichte's  Reden  and  the  War  of  Liberation,  he  discredited, 
yet  further  than  even  the  Lutheran  Church  of  the  age 
had  been  able  to  do,  the  ideas  of  popular  religion. 
Dogmatic  and  sentimental  religion  was  with  him  no  part 
of  the  rational  man  ;  historical  truths  were  to  him  no 
essential  element  in  what  is  "  purely  an  affair  of  reason." 
He  vindicates  against  the  contemptuous  criticism  of  the 
Aufkldrung  the  claims  of  the  historical  "husk"  of 
Christianity  to  respect,  but  only  because  he  considers 
such  a  matter  to  be  on  too  low  a  level  to  deserve  close 
speculative  examination.  When  instructed  ministers 
have  to  teach  ignorant  congregations,  he  admitted  that 
the  figures  and  inducements  of  popular  religion  should  be 
used ;  but  he  contended  that  the  teacher  himself  must 
neither   forget  the  subordinate  nature  of  the  religious 


CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY  255 

ideas,  nor  omit  to  interpret  the  scriptural  narrative 
solely  with  a  view  to  illustrate  and  recommend  the 
dictates  of  practical  reason.  If  German  theologians  have 
been  loth  to  submit  to  the  rubrics  of  positive  religion,  and 
have  carried  rationalism  beyond  the  point  consistent 
with  a  sincere  profession  of  faith,  it  has  not  been  through 
lack  of  original  ethical  rigour,  for  disregard  of  dogma 
was  in  a  large  measure  a  direct  result  from  Kant's 
memorable  exaltation  of  the  moral  law. 

Philosophy  of  Common  Sense. — For  a  long  time 
the  influence  of  transcendentalism  was  confined  to 
Germany,  and  thought  in  other  countries  continued  to 
proceed  as  if  no  maturer  mode  of  regarding  philosophical 
problems  had  been  introduced  since  the  days  of  Hume. 
Among  Hume's  countrymen,  recoil  from  his  conclusions 
occasioned  vigorous  insistence  on  the  immediate  testi- 
mony of  consciousness  ;  and  a  small  body  of  dogmatists 
arose  who  strove  to  defeat  the  destructive  tendency  of 
psychological  analysis  by  confronting  it  with  a  scheme 
of  ultimate  truths.  These  truths  or  necessary  beliefs  of 
the  Scottish  school — since  they  were  said  to  be  the 
property  of  every  intelligence,  and  to  be  recognizable 
by  every  unsophisticated  individual — were  called  the 
philosophy  of  common  sense.  In  their  crudest  form 
the  arguments  from  common  sense  were  hardly  superior 
to  that  of  Johnson  when  he  refuted  Berkeley's  idealism 
by  kicking  a  stone ;  but  they  received  several  degrees  of 
elaboration,  and  became  capable  of  affording  occasional 
refuge  to  many  whose  speculative  position  needed  the 
support  of  irresponsible  assertion.  At  no  time,  however, 
have  they  approached  the  process  of  knowledge  in  the 
critical  fashion  of  Kant,  though,  doubtless,  a  superficial 
resemblance  between  their  assumptions  and  Kant's 
treatment  of  morality  helped  to  recommend  them  to 
later    thinkers.      They    have    always     retained    their 


256         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

undiscriminating  character,  and  to  this  day  they  continue 
to  cover  hasty  reasoning  in  theories  for  which  they  have 
no  true  affinity. 

Empirical  Psychology. — On  the  other  hand,  the 
objects  of  those  who  disregarded  the  lesson  of  Hume  and 
the  criticism  of  Kant  have  never  been  entirely  speculative, 
but  have  always  retained  a  certain  degree  of  practical 
purpose.  The  first  aim  of  empirical  psychology  is  to 
perfect  the  theory  and  practice  of  education  for  the 
individual ;  its  next  object  is  to  provide  data  for  the 
improvement  of  societies  through  legislation  and 
culture ;  and  its  application  to  speculative  problems 
should  follow  after  these  two  questions  have  received 
attention.  In  England,  where  men  can  as  little  as  else- 
where dispense  with  a  philosophy  of  some  sort,  but 
where  the  slenderest  connection  with  immediate  practice 
is  held  in  more  esteem  than  the  strongest  relation  to 
abstract  truth,  the  metaphysical  aspect  of  psychology 
has  been  of  historical  importance  equally  with  either  of 
the  other  aspects,  though  it  was  here  that  practical 
science  was  most  successfully  cultivated. 

Hartley's  Theory  of  Association. — The  fundamental 
principle  of  empirical  psychology  is  the  law  of  associa- 
tion between  mental  states,  which  has  been  recognized 
by  varions  writers  since  the  time  of  Aristotle.  It  was 
first  systematically  applied  to  explain  the  phenomena  of 
mind  by  Hartley  in  his  work  on  man,  published  1749. 
In  this  book  sensations  were  taken  to  be  the  originals  of 
our  ideas,  whose  association  was  supposed  to  result  from 
contiguity  of  the  sensations  in  the  same  instant  or 
successive  instants  of  time.  On  this  basis  Hartley  tried 
to  explain  the  intellectual  and  moral  nature  of  man  with 
much  sagacity,  though  he  persistently  connected  with  it 
a  physical  hypothesis  of  mental  processes  which  had 
been  suggested  to  him  by  some  remarks  in  Newton's 


CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY  257 

works.  This  theory  of  vibrations  and  vibratiuncles  was 
crude,  and  at  that  time  supported  by  very  little  evidence ; 
but  it  was  certainly  the  precursor  of  the  physiological 
treatment  of  psychology  in  modern  times.  Thus  in 
history  Hartley  is  prominent  as  a  supporter  of  sensa- 
tional and  materialistic  philosophy.  Yet  Hartley  him- 
self composed  his  treatise  in  the  interests  of  moral  and 
religious  improvement ;  and  so  sincere  was  his  large- 
hearted  concern  for  what  is  good,  that  he  has  gained  the 
admiration  and  respect  of  thinkers  of  all  schools.  His 
materialism  and  necessarianism,  though  they  resulted 
from  his  observations  on  man's  "  frame,"  were  not  per- 
mitted to  corrupt  his  observations  on  man's  "  duty  and 
expectations."  "  I  would  not,"  he  says,  "  be  any  way 
interpreted  so  as  to  oppose  the  immateriality  of  the 
soul.  On  the  contrary,  I  see  clearly,  and  acknowledge 
readily,  that  matter  and  motion,  however  subtly  divided 
or  reasoned  upon,  yield  nothing  more  than  matter  and 
motion  still."  "  I  nowhere  deny  practical  free  will,"  he 
protests,  '*  but,  on  the  contrary,  establish  it  (if  so  plain 
a  thing  will  admit  of  being  farther  established)  by  show- 
ing in  what  manner  it  results  from  the  frame  of  our 
natures."  "All  the  pleasures  and  pains  of  sensation, 
imagination,  ambition,  self-interest,  and  theopathy,  as 
far  as  they  are  consistent  with  one  another,  with  the 
fram^  of  our  natures,  and  with  the  course  of  the  world, 
beget  in  us  a  moral  sense,  and  lead  us  to  the  love  and 
approbation  of  virtue,  and  to  the  fear,  hatred,  and 
abhorrence  of  vice.  This  moral  sense,  therefore,  carries 
its  own  authority  with  it,  inasmuch  as  it  is  the  sum  total 
of  all  the  rest,  and  the  ultimate  result  from  them."  "  The 
doctrine  of  mechanism,"  he  contends,  "  has  a  tendency  to 
make  us  labour  more  earnestly  with  ourselves  and  others, 
particularly  children,  from  the  greater  certainty  attend- 
ing all  endeavours  that  operate  in  a  mechanical  way  ;  *' 
s 


258         HISTORY  OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

while  **  it  is  evident  from  common  observation,  and  more 
so  from  the  foregoing  theory,  that  children  may  be 
formed  and  moulded  as  we  please."  And  he  concludes 
his  work  by  deploring  the  consequences  of  a  corrupt  and 
perverted  education  of  youth. 

James  Mill's  Treatment  of  Associationist  Psy- 
chology.— Hartley's  practical  bent  was  hardly  consis- 
tent with  subtle  consideration  of  the  higher  metaphysical 
problems,  but  this  did  not  impair  his  influence  on  English 
thought.  His  speculative  views  were  handed  down 
through  Priestley  and  Tucker,  and  the  fourth  edition 
of  his  book  was  published  in  1801.  Thus  the  interval 
between  the  date  of  the  Observations  and  that  of  the 
next  great  work  on  the  subject,  amounting  though  it 
did  to  eighty  years,  was  no  period  of  oblivion  for  the 
associationist  psychology.  James  Mill's  Analysis  only 
superseded  Hartley's  treatise  in  the  nineteenth  century 
by  asserting  its  principle  anew  and  extending  the  appli- 
cation of  its  method.  But  the  new  version  of  the  theory 
contained  as  many  speculative  conclusions  as  the  old 
one  did  practical  lessons,  though  Mill  was  no  meta- 
physician, and  his  character  as  a  psychologist  and 
publicist  was  marked  by  intense  faith  in  the  power  of 
education.  In  the  Analysis^  it  is  true,  there  is  no  theory 
of  nervous  action,  but  the  law  of  association  is  applied 
to  a  wider  range  of  mental  processes,  and  is  artlessly 
made  to  supply  answers  or  denials  to  the  most  abstract 
questions. 

Influence  of  British  Speculation. — In  the  last 
portion  of  the  Analysis^  which  is  occupied  with  deriving 
the  ideas  of  morality  from  non-moral  elements,  the 
practical  aspect  of  associationist  psychology  comes  into 
favourable  prominence.  It  is,  indeed,  in  the  depart- 
ments of  education,  jurisprudence,  and  sociology  that 
Bentham,  Mill,  and  their  school  have  achieved  all  their 


CRITICAL  PHILOSOPHY  259 

success.  Nor  has  this  been  inconsiderable  ;  but  as  long 
as  English  thought  mistakes  practical  method  for  a 
metaphysical  system,  the  historian  must  continue  to 
point  out  how  greatly  the  irrelevance  of  sensational 
psychology  in  speculative  questions  was  answerable  for 
the  barren  results  of  philosophical  investigation  in  an 
age  when  discussion  was  active  beyond  example.  And 
this  is  not  the  less  necessary  because  James  Mill's  suc- 
cessors found  themselves  forced  to  acknowledge  some 
facts  to  be  ultimate  and  irresolvable  which,  despite  his 
logical  severity,  he  treated  in  a  circle  for  the  sake  of 
maintaining  his  disbelief  in  "  mystery."  For  when  they 
could  not  follow  him  in  denying,  they  continued  to 
imitate  him  by  shelving,  fundamental  questions,  and, 
like  him,  they  ignored  the  insufficiency  of  which  this 
necessity  convicted  their  method.  Yet,  by  sharing  the 
dogmatism  of  the  Scotch  School,  they  added  to  their 
popularity  as  these  last  again  extended  their  influence 
by  encroaching  on  the  province  of  associationism.  But 
reference  to  ill-assorted  eclecticism  brings  philosophy  in 
this  island  into  connection  with  continental  thought. 
In  France,  at  the  same  time  that  Hartley  wrote,  Locke's 
sensational  principles  also  received  extension  and  appli- 
cation from  Condillac,  and  this  manner  of  thinking 
remained  dominant  till,  at  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  Royer-Collard  taught  Scotch  intuition- 
ism.  Hence,  British  speculation  at  this  period,  though 
of  independent  growth,  was  typical  of  a  widespread 
intellectual  tendency,  and  no  less  than  German  critical 
philosophy  contributed  to  the  ideas  by  which  modern 
Europe  had  to  seek  to  strengthen  faith,  remove  doubt, 
or  defend  negation. 


CHAPTER  X 

NATIONAL  LITERATURE  IN  GERMANY 

"  So  verschieden  die  Zeiten  sind,  so  verschieden  muss  auch  die 
Sphare  des  Geschmacks  sein,  obgleich  immer  einerlei  Regain 
wirken  ;  die  Materialien  und  Zwecke  sind  zu  alien  Zeiten  anders." 
— Herder. 

"In  des  Herzens  heilig  stille  Raume 
Muszt  du  fliehen  aus  des  Lebens  Drang ; 
Freiheit  ist  nur  in  dem  Reich  der  Trauma, 
Und  das  Schone  bliiht  nur  im  Gesang." 

Schiller. 

Literature  and  General  History. — After  account  has 
been  taken  of  the  political  structure  and  aspirations, 
of  the  industrial  organization,  commercial  principles, 
and  mechanical  resources,  of  the  scientific  knowledge 
and  speculative  insight  of  a  period, — after  account  has 
been  taken  of  all  these  varied  elements,  which  together 
form  the  solid  groundwork  of  civilized  societies,  there 
still  remains  an  important  factor  in  social  development 
which  can  be  included  under  none  of  these  heads, 
though  it  is  never  without  some  points  of  connection 
with  them.  This  outstanding  element  resides  in  the 
province  of  pure  literature.  Too  often,  and  in  Germany- 
very  frequently,  attempts  to  deal  with  history  from  a 
general  point  of  view  pay  excessive  attention  to  a 
critical  estimate  of  the  literature  of  the  period.  The 
primary  forces  of  social  life,  with  the  exception  of  those 
of  war  and  statesmanship,  receive  scant  attention,  while 

260 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE   IN  GERMANY    261 

the  secondary  influences  of  literary  compositions  obtain 
all  the  importance  which  a  chronicle  of  publications, 
biographies  of  authors,  pedigrees  of  books,  and  criticism 
of  their  literary  merits  can  confer.  The  common  re- 
proach against  literary  men,  that  they  attach  too  great 
importance  to  literature,  is  indeed  merely  a  remonstrance 
against  an  error  in  historical  proportion,  which  is,  how- 
ever, equally  chargeable  against  the  usual  treatment  of 
politics  by  professed  historians. 

German  Literature  and  Modern  History. — From 
the  point  of  view  of  our  present  purpose  the  most 
notable  literary  event  of  modern  Europe  was  neither 
the  work  of  a  commanding  genius  nor  the  formation  of 
a  school  of  writers,  but  the  fact  that  a  great  people 
produced  a  literature  of  its  own.  The  means  by  which 
Germany  has  attained  to  political  unity  and  strength  in 
our  own  time  tend  to  reflect  on  the  War  of  Liberation 
disproportionate  significance  to  the  neglect  of  those 
spiritual  influences  which  are  only  less  conspicuous 
because  they  are  more  fundamental.  Yet  the  meaning 
of  the  memorable  fight  cannot  be  discerned  unless  it  is 
understood  to  have  supervened  on  an  invigorating 
intellectual  reunion  of  the  German  people.  But  the 
greatness  of  the  movement  far  transcended  its  services 
to  a  single  nation.  Like  the  industrial  revolution  in 
England,  like  its  own  philosophical  advances,  Germany's 
literary  revival  contributed  elements  of  intrinsic  value 
to  the  culture  of  civilization.  Like  all  literary  products, 
however,  it  retained  in  a  greater  degree  a  national 
character,  and  if  its  results  are  in  some  measure  the 
property  of  all  highly  developed  peoples,  its  genesis 
was  only  possible  in  the  Germany  of  that  period. 

The  "  Sturm  und  Drang  "  Episode. — When  Les^ 
sing  laid  down  his  rules  of  literary  art,  writers  were 
disposed  to  await  from  events,  like  those  of  the  first 


262         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

part  of  Frederick's  reign,  an  improvement  in  the  state 
of  the  German  nation.  But  this  expectancy  soon  wore 
off,  and  the  longing  for  freedom  and  originality  which 
Lessing  expressed  and  heightened,  ceased  to  obtain  any 
satisfaction  from  the  contemplation  of  social  and  politi- 
cal circumstances.  As  a  new  generation  grew  up,  the 
craving  for  independence  and  spontaneity  came  into 
harsher  conflict  with  external  conditions.  The  aspira- 
tions of  the  mind  found  only  bitter  mockery  in  the 
realities  of  the  world.  Disgusted  with  actual  existence, 
the  German  youth  sought  to  vent  its  impulses  in  ideal 
creations.  From  the  mortifications  of  life  it  fled  within 
the  asylum  of  the  imagination.  But  the  spirit,  which 
could  not  face  the  restraints  and  disappointments  of  the 
traditional  order,  was  not  able  to  brook  the  laws  and 
conditions  of  genuine  art.  Resort  to  subjective  activity 
issued  only  in  barren  extravagances. 

The  "  Sturm  und  Drang  "  Lawlessness. — With 
this  tendency  Lessing  had  no  sympathy.  During  the 
latter  part  of  his  career  he  ceased  to  participate  in  the 
aspirations  of  the  day,  and  he  retired  in  despair  from 
the  theatre  which  he  had  done  so  much  to  emancipate. 
And  truly  the  productions  of  the  Sturm  und  Drang 
movement — taking  the  phrase  in  the  narrower  sense  to 
which  the  name  of  Klinger's  play  properly  restricts  it — 
were,  from  the  point  of  view  of  literary  and  artistic 
criticism,  only  capable  of  exciting  regret  and  disappoint- 
ment in  one  whose  demand  for  independence  was  ever 
accompanied  by  insistence  on  the  discipline  of  reason 
and  the  nature  of  things.  In  literary  history  they  are 
remembered  only  on  account  of  their  connection  with 
Goethe's  early  development;  but  in  general  history 
the  episode  possesses  peculiar  interest.  That  a  nation, 
in  the  early  moments  of  its  awakening,  should  en- 
deavour to  develop  the  resources  of  its  language  is  no 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE   IN  GERMANY    263 

extraordinary  thing.  That  recourse  should  be  had  to 
the  literature  of  some  more  advanced  but  kindred  nation 
for  guidance  and  matter  in  the  exercise  of  a  renovated 
language,  is  a  regular  consequence  of  the  process  of 
national  revivals.  But  for  these  steps  to  be  overtaken 
by  a  wild  effort  to  attain  independently  to  literary 
freedom  and  originality,  not  because  the  generation 
really  possessed  genius  or  artistic  power,  but  merely 
because  a  heightened  sense  of  dignity  and  force  sought 
satisfaction  in  strenuous  efforts  to  produce  in  the  regions 
of  imagination  and  sentiment  what  was  natural,  power- 
ful, and  inviolable — this  sequel,  however  erratic  and 
ridiculous  it  might  be  in  its  particular  results,  was  only 
possible  if  a  vast  fund  of  latent  energy  existed  in  the 
society.  It  proved  that  Germany's  revival  was  not 
solely  due  to  advance  in  material  comfort.  It  revealed 
the  operation  of  intellectual  and  ethical  forces,  which 
were  to  make  of  a  social  improvement  a  national 
regeneration. 

Herder  and  National  Culture,  1744-1803. — The 
man  in  whom  first  appeared  the  deeper  meaning  of  the 
Sturm  und  Drang  movement  was  Herder.  In  him  the 
desire  for  complete  life  induced  fundamental  revision  of 
his  thoughts  and  feeling,  though  his  wide  sympathies 
and  extensive  views  saved  him  from  the  illusions  of 
individual  subjectiveness.  Of  himself  he  experienced 
in  full  degree  the  attractions  of  Rousseau's  teaching ; 
guided  by  Hamann,  who  had  been  in  England,  he 
studied  with  zeal  Shakespeare,  Ossian,  and  the  songs  of 
old ;  instigated  by  the  same  friend,  he  formed  the  most 
comprehensive  ideal  of  culture ;  and  from  Kant's  per- 
sonal instruction  he  learnt  to  approach  knowledge  under 
all  its  aspects.  But  his  strength  of  character  and  force 
of  mind  enabled  him  to  combine  these  various  influences 
into  one  coherent  tendency  without  making  the  mistakes 


264         HISTORY   OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

which  marred  the  intellectual  development  of  many  of 
his  countrymen.  Though  not  a  systematic  teacher,  his 
whole  influence  as  an  individual  and  a  writer  was  to 
make  men  more  aware  of  the  solidarity  of  their  cir- 
cumstances, and  the  continuity  of  their  past  and  present 
history.  While  he  surpassed  Lessing  in  condemning 
imitation,  and  in  exalting  the  idiosyncratic  elements  in 
national  life,  he  set  forth  a  high  standard  of  culture,  and 
insisted  on  the  correspondence  which  should  obtain 
between  a  nation's  circumstances  and  its  religion,  poetry, 
and  art.  In  his  enthusiasm  for  national  genius,  he 
wished  that  Germany  might  have  been  a  Britain ;  in  his 
love  for  what  is  unsophisticated,  he  dwelt  with  rapture 
on  the  beauties  of  primitive  civilization.  But  no  one 
did  so  much  to  protect  his  countrymen  from  the  vices 
of  insularity,  or  to  give  them  an  adequate  conception  of 
man's  needs  and  capabilities. 

Herder  and  the  Historical  Idea. — Herder,  then, 
passed  beyond  the  conflict  in  the  life  of  the  individual 
to  the  synthesis  which  forms  the  life  of  the  race  and  the 
species.  He  lived  down  the  paltry  sense  of  present 
vexations,  and  arrived  at  a  noble  consciousness  of  the 
complex  nature  of  human  development.  His  own 
insight  was  most  sure  into  the  earlier  forms  of  human 
culture ;  and  his  poetic  faculty  only  attained  its  proper 
exercise  when  he  sang  over  again  in  his  own  language 
the  folk-songs  which  he  diligently  collected  from  all 
ages  and  countries.  But  his  sense  for  the  products  of 
times  other  than  his  own  was  so  deep  and  universal 
that  he  opened  up  new  and  truer  views  of  all  spiritual 
possessions  of  man,  and  of  many  a  period  in  the  past. 
He  it  was,  indeed,  who  initiated  the  modern  comparative 
study  of  poetry,  art,  language,  and  religion.  He  it  was 
who  familiarized  students  with  the  evolutionary  treat- 
ment of  civilization  in  general.     While  his  views   on 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE   IN  GERMANY    265 

recorded  history  gave  Germans  a  new  interest  in  their 
past,  he  showed  them  that,  notwithstanding  their 
present  plight,  they  were  one  of  the  national  forces  of 
the  world.  Thus,  Herder  was  not  only  a  powerful 
agent  in  bringing  to  maturity  the  intellectual  life  of 
modern  Germany,  but  he  was  one  of  the  most  able 
promulgators  of  the  historical  idea  which  the  century 
brought  forth  as  a  corrective  of  its  own  errors. 

Herder's  Influence  on  Goethe. — When  Goethe 
associated  with  Herder  in  Strasburg  he  was  a  young 
man  of  twenty-two,  who  already  had  acquired  a  rich 
experience  of  the  impulses  which  youth  could  receive 
in  German  burgher  life  at  that  time.  During  his 
university  course  at  Leipzig  he  had  learned  to  despise 
the  literary  methods  of  the  dying  generation.  He  had 
read  something  of  Shakespeare,  and  drawn  instruction 
from  Lessing  and  Wieland.  Science  he  had  pursued  in 
the  form  of  alchemy,  and  religion  he  had  felt  with  the 
pietists.  The  despair  of  thwarted  passion  had  accrued 
to  him  from  his  early  loves,  while  the  attractions  and 
loose  manners  of  the  stage,  and  the  company  of  not 
very  respectable  acquaintances,  had  expanded  his 
notions  of  conduct  much  beyond  the  necessary  limits 
of  everyday  life.  But  his  had  not  been  the  cruel 
experiences  of  poverty  which  unbalanced,  while  they 
stimulated,  the  powers  of  many  of  his  weaker  con- 
temporaries. At  Strasburg  Goethe  pursued  these 
impressions  into  more  intense  forms.  Scientific  study 
was  supplied  by  medicine  and  chemistry ;  his  boyish 
flirtations  were  exchanged  for  an  attachment  which 
might  conceivably  have  proved  permanent ;  and  his 
religious  feelings  gradually  conformed  to  the  sentimental 
pantheism  which  at  that  time  attended  an  uncritical, 
though  sympathetic,  study  of  Spinoza.  But  it  was  from 
his  intercourse  with  Herder,  who,  five  years  older  than 


266         HISTORY   OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

himself,  had  already  attained  reputation  and  seen  the 
world,  that  the  young  Goethe  gained  most  instruction 
and  guidance.  Whatever  Herder  had  to  impart,  Goethe 
received  in  the  form  which  most  directly  hit  his  own 
faults  and  needs.  Herder  finally  discredited  to  him  the 
pretensions  of  French  culture,  and  exposed  the  poverty 
of  current  German  literature.  He  led  Goethe  to  a  fuller 
appreciation  of  Shakespeare,  Ossian,  popular  songs,  and 
Rousseau,  and  awoke  in  him  a  deep  response  to  the 
truth  of  nature. 

Goethe's  Early  Works,  1773-74. — Goethe  had 
already  written  several  small  pieces  of  poetry  when  he 
made  his  first  earnest  attempt  to  unburden  himself  of  the 
feelings  which  new  knowledge  had  awakened  in  him. 
This  was  a  drama  of  the  Middle  Ages,  in  which  force  and 
originality  should  no  more  than  in  Shakespeare's  plays 
suffer  from  the  restraints  of  form.  The  hero  of  this  play 
is  Gotz  von  Berlichingen,  a  knight  of  the  empire  when 
club-law  was  yielding  to  the  authority  of  the  modern 
state.  But  in  him  Goethe  portrayed  no  doomed 
obstacle  to  the  advance  of  civilization.  The  story  of 
his  fall  is  made  to  represent  the  triumph  of  chicanery 
and  degeneracy  over  noble  and  natural  manhood.  Gotz 
of  the  iron  hand  is  the  embodiment  of  individual  freedom 
and  straightforwardness,  his  enemies  of  social  fraud  and 
hypocrisy.  He  falls  because  history  says  he  did ;  but 
Goethe  takes  care  that  spectators  shall  deplore  his  fate, 
and  heed  only  his  independent  spirit,  his  knightly  virtues, 
and  invocations  to  freedom.  This  play  immediately 
obtained  great  popularity,  and  formed  the  model  for  a 
multitude  of  inferior  imitations.  In  itself  no  work  of 
art,  it  was  written  with  extraordinary  force,  freshness, 
and  feeling,  and  justly  commanded  admiration  at  this 
juncture  in  German  literature.  By  the  public,  however, 
these  merits  were  completely  neglected  in  its  interest  for 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE   IN   GERMANY    267 

the  social  antagonism  which  it  represented,  and  the 
imitators  were  secure  of  almost  equal  popularity,  so 
long  as  they  staunchly  upheld  the  cause  of  rude  freedom 
against  modern  institutions.  But  Goethe  had  another 
aspect  of  the  time's  schmerz  to  illumine.  Sick  at  heart 
because  the  last  object  of  his  affections  was  betrothed 
to  another,  and  startled  by  the  suicide  of  a  love-lorn 
acquaintance,  he  wrote  a  novel,  depicting  the  sufferings 
of  a  tender,  sentimental  soul  in  this  rough  world  of 
social  distinctions  and  marriage  bonds.  In  Werther^ 
the  main  cause  of  the  hero's  suicide  is  disappointed 
love,  but  inasmuch  as  the  catastrophe  is  a  solution  of 
the  general  conflict  between  the  individual's  yearnings 
and  society's  laws,  an  additional  motive  is  supplied  by 
foiled  ambition.  Napoleon,  ignorant  of  the  circum- 
stances in  which  Werther  was  wTitten,  noticed  the 
combination  of  motives  as  a  flaw  in  the  novel  when 
he  conversed  with  Goethe  at  Erfurt  in  1808,  and  by 
that  time  the  poet  seems  to  have  lost  the  key  to  his 
own  procedure.  But  Werther  itself,  and  the  raging 
sympathy  for  Werther's  fate,  can  only  be  explained  if, 
besides  the  love-troubles  which  every  generation  suffers, 
the  existence  of  a  special  feeling  of  social  dissatisfaction 
is  taken  into  account. 

Goethe  and  European  Culture,  1749-1832. — By 
G'dtz  and  Werther,  Goethe  proved  himself  to  be,  in 
language,  the  first  poet  of  his  generation.  But  a  per- 
ception of  the  vast  nature  of  the  man  is  not  possible  till 
it  is  understood  that  about  the  same  time  he  was  occu- 
pied with  works  which  make  him  no  less  the  poet  of  the 
period's  intellectual  tendencies.  When  Goethe  went 
to  Weimar,  at  the  end  of  1775,  he  had  written,  besides 
a  quantity  of  smaller  pieces,  the  fragment  Promet/teus, 
which  expresses  the  defiant,  negative  side  of  pantheism. 
He    had,   moreover,   written   nearly  all    of  what  was 


268         HISTORY   OF   MODERN  EUROPE 

published  in  1790  as  the  Faustfragmenty  that  is,  about  half 
of  the  complete  first  part  of  the  poem  ;  and,  according 
to  his  own  testimony,  he  had  conceived  the  idea  of  the 
whole  tragedy.  In  the  two  parts  of  Fausty  Goethe 
appears  as  the  deepest  and  most  comprehensive  poet  of 
European  spiritual  life  during  an  eminently  rich  period 
of  sixty  years.  In  it  we  see  reflected  the  movement  of 
German  culture  and  the  course  of  European  thought. 
In  it  we  have  an  allegory  of  individual  development  at 
that  time,  and  (since  evolution  in  the  individual  follows 
that  in  the  race)  of  part  of  individual  development  for 
many  generations  to  come.*  Such  a  work,  of  course, 
could  only  have  been  produced  by  one  who  had  much 
of  his  own  self  to  add.  But  it  will  be  long  before  men 
and  women  cease  to  find  in  Faust  a  partial  reflex  of 
their  own  inner  experiences  ;  and  never  will  they  cease 
to  find  therein  the  most  instructive  and  profound 
historical  document  of  the  age  to  which  it  belongs. 
Read  without  help  from  subtle  commentators,  the  poem 
affords  the  most  enlightening  paraphrase  of  recorded 
history  which  genius,  through  a  long  and  vigorous  life, 
could  set  forth  for  the  behoof  of  contemporaries  and  the 
guidance  of  posterity. 

Faust  as  an  Historical  Document. — Faust  is  the 
embodiment  of  human  aspirations  when  men  have  found 
inadequate  to  their  wants  the  lore  transmitted  from  the 
past.  At  such  a  time  an  inward  impulse  hurries  afar 
the    nobler   minds.      "Ihn  treibt  die   Gahrung   in   die 

•  Goethe  himself  said  of  Faust  in  his  eightieth  year  :  "It  permanently 
preserves  the  period  of  development  of  a  human  soul.  .  .  .  The  author  is 
at  present  far  removed  from  such  conditions ;  the  world,  likewise,  has  to 
some  extent  other  struggles  to  undergo  ;  nevertheless,  the  state  of  men,  in 
joy  and  sorrow,  remains  very  much  the  same ;  and  the  latest-born  will  still 
find  cause  to  acquaint  himself  with  what  has  been  enjoyed  and  suffered 
before  him,  in  order  to  adapt  himself  to  that  which  awaits  him." — Bayard 
Taylor's  Translation  of  Faust,  1,  365. 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE  IN  GERMANY    269 

Feme,"  says  Mephistopheles  of  the  great  doctor.  As 
Faust  approaches  the  limits  of  his  resources,  he  becomes 
emboldened  to  abandon  the  seclusion  of  the  student 
for  the  manifold  experiences  of  life.  This  mood,  this 
longing  for  spontaneity  and  natural  revelation,  conflicts 
roughly  with  traditional  methods ;  and  Faust,  in  re- 
buking the  narrow  formalism  of  Wagner,  utters  the  faith 
of  the  Sturm  und  Drang  enthusiasm.  And  when,  in 
scornful  despair,  Faust  curses  his  passing  dream  of  a 
more  beauteous  life,  the  hidden  Geisterchor  chants,  as 
did  the  inner  self  of  man — 

**  Now  we  sweep  "  Wir  tragen 

The  wrecks  into  nothingness  !  Die  Triimmer  ins  Nichts  hiniiber, 

Fondly  we  weep  Und  klagen 

The  beauty  that's  gone  !  Ueber  die  verlorene  Schone. 

Thou,  'mongst  the  sons  of  earth,  Machtiger  der  Erdensohne, 

Lofty  and  mighty  one,  Prachtiger, 

Build  it  once  more  !  Baue  sie  wieder, 

In  thine  own  bosom  the  lost  world  In  deinem  Busem  baue  sie  auf." 
restore."* 

But  the  common  multitude  cannot  at  once  follow 
such  counsel.  Left  to  itself,  it  can  only  lose  its  grief  in 
different  kinds  of  intoxication.  It  is  only  when  the 
party  in  Auerbach's  cellar  has  been  transported  by  his 
wines  that  Mephistopheles  can  say  that  now  the  race  is 
free  and  happy.  Only  the  everstriving  can  work  out 
their  own  salvation.  When  Faust  has  striven  to  the 
end,  the  angels  of  heaven  lift  him  up,  singing,  "  Whoever 
aspires  unweariedly  is  not  beyond  redemption."  f 

Faust  as  a  Human  Document. — Faust,  as  a 
whole,  is  styled  a  tragedy  ;  and  such  it  is  in  deepest 
truth,  since  at  the  end  of  incessant  efforts  to  work  out 
his  salvation  the  hero  has  to  confess,  what  at  the  outset 

*  Miss  Swanwick's  translation,  p.  52, 

t  "  Wer  immer  strebend  sich  bemiiht 
Den  konnen  wir  crlosen." 


270         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

he  had  been  able  to  spell  out  for  himself  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  "  Im  Anfang  war  die  That."  In  the  last  stage 
of  his  career,  before  the  intervention  of  heaven  deprives 
Mephistopheles  of  his  reward,  Faust  is  discovered  to  be 
engaged  in  the  undertakings  of  material  civilization.  It 
is,  indeed,  exaltation  at  the  prospect  of  carrying  out  the 
last  drainage  work  necessary  to  reclaim  a  piece  of  land 
for  human  use  which  induces  the  utterance  of  the  words 
appointed  to  declare  his  doom  : — 

**  Yes  !  to  this  thought  I  hold  with  firm  persistence ; 

The  last  result  of  wisdom  stamps  it  true  : 
He  only  earns  his  freedom  and  existence 

Who  daily  conquers  them  anew. 
Thus  here,  by  dangers  girt,  shall  glide  away 
Of  childhood,  manhood,  age,  the  vigorous  day. 
And  such  a  throng  I  fain  would  see 
Stand  on  free  soil  among  a  people  free  I 
Then  dared  I  hail  the  moment  fleeing : 
*  Ah,  still  delay,  thou  art  so  fair  ! '"  * 

Thus  on  one  side  the  solution  of  the  tragic  conflict 
of  the  eighteenth  century  is  nineteenth-century  progress. 
But  the  drama  contains  a  tragedy  within  itself — the 
episode  of  Gretchen — which  manifests  the  limitations 
and  disasters  which  surround  the  individual  on  this 
earth.  In  the  Prologue  in  Heaven,  however,  the  Lord 
had  declared,  "  Es  irrt  der  Mensch,  so  lang'  er  strebt." 
The  hero  passes  through  the  incident  at  the  cost  of 
weariness  only,  and  Faust  lives  to  appreciate  the  efforts 
which  inferior  souls  like  Wagner  persistently  make  in 
behalf  of  a  dimly  seen  service  to  humanity. 

Goethe's  Idea  of  Self-culture. — It  is  indeed 
evident  that  in  the  drama  of  Faust,  along  with  so  many 
other  things,  Goethe  expressed  his  own  idea  of  self- 
culture.  Goethe,  like  Faust,  was  bent  on  acquiring 
experience  and   knowledge    co-extensive  with   that  of 

*  Bayard  Taylor's  translation. 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE  IN   GERMANY     271 

humanity  ;  like  Faust,  he  aimed  at  attaining  to  harmony 
of  soul  with  reality  ;  like  Faust,  too,  he  went  forth  in 
his  quest  without  seeking  a  like  enrichment  of  his  moral 
character.  Mephistopheles  is  just  so  much  of  a  devil  as 
every  acute  and  vigorous  man  carries  in  his  heart ;  and 
Goethe  always  forces  us  to  conceive  of  him  as  Faust's 
other  self,  which  was  necessarily  present  and  operative 
in  every  phase  of  the  changeful  history.  In  his  own 
participation  in  both  sides  of  human  nature  lies  the 
explanation  of  the  reverence  which  Goethe  commands, 
and  the  antipathy  which  he  excites,  among  men  who 
are  closely  attached  to  the  first  conditions  of  human 
society.  It  is  impossible  not  to  honour  his  ideal  of 
complete  manhood ;  it  would  be  blindness  to  disregard 
the  equivocal  aspect  which  his  erotic  inclinations  gave 
to  part  of  his  life.  But  Mephistopheles  confessed  once 
for  all  that  he  thought  upon  "  the  Fair  in  the  plural  ; " 
and  in  Goethe's  own  life  and  work  this  very  important 
side  of  human  life  was  either  imperfectly  represented  or 
misrepresented  altogether. 

Goethe  as  a  Citizen. — Likewise  was  it  with 
Goethe's  relation  to  political  life.  He  also  had  no 
sense  for  popular  liberties,  no  perception  of  the  indirect 
benefits  surrounding  all  kinds  of  self-government.  It 
was  his  opinion  that  "the  poor  people  must  always 
carry  the  bag,  and  whether  on  the  right  side  or  the  left 
is  pretty  indifferent ;  "  though  in  discharging  his  ad- 
ministrative duties  he  seems  to  have  followed  the 
antifeudal  views  which  Lothario  expresses  in  Wilhelm 
Meister,  With  him  political  conflict  was  only  detri- 
mental to  tranquil  self-culture.  He  placidly  accepted 
Napoleon's  pretensions ;  and  his  heedless  demeanour 
during  the  time  of  insurrection  has  never  been  for- 
given by  the  most  admiring  of  his  countrymen.  But 
when  these  limitations  have  been   admitted,   Goethe's 


272         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

steadfast  purpose  of  making  life  a  work  of  art,  and  art 
a  work  of  law,  still  affords  an  instructive  experiment  in 
complete  living. 

Schiller,  1759-1805  :  His  First  Period. —A  time 
came  when  Goethe  found  that  his  influence  over  the 
German  public  was  in  danger  of  being  forfeited  to  his 
friend  Schiller.  Schiller  was  ten  years  younger  than 
Goethe,  and  his  life  from  childhood  had  been  filled, 
not  with  sentimental  dissatisfaction  at  the  general 
conditions  of  society,  but  with  keen  personal  suffering 
from  the  political  despotism  and  civil  distinctions  of  the 
smaller  German  states.  Schiller  was  brought  up  under 
the  tutelage  of  the  Duke  of  Wiirtemberg,  a  ruler  who 
had  parodied  Louis  XIV.  by  silencing  his  suppliant 
estates  with  the  assurance  that  he  was  the  Fatherland. 
Personal  liberty  Schiller  only  obtained  when  by  flight 
he  became  an  outlaw  ;  and  during  his  years  of  struggling 
authorship  he  enjoyed  no  leisure,  no  solvency,  and  no 
intercourse  with  more  mature  minds.  When,  therefore, 
his  glowing  feelings  sought  an  outlet  and  a  vocation  in 
dramatic  composition,  it  was  not  in  forms  of  art,  but  in 
scenes  of  fiery  passion  against  tyranny  and  injustice. 
But  in  due  course  Schiller  passed  through  a  process  of 
reflection  and  ripening  like  that  which  Goethe  himself 
had  undergone.  What  life  at  Weimar  and  scientific 
investigation  had  done  for  the  one,  the  study  of  history, 
philosophy,  and  ancient  literature  did  for  the  other. 
In  1789  Schiller  was  appointed  professor  of  history  at 
Jena  by  help  of  Goethe,  who  nevertheless  still  feared 
that  he  was  likely  to  deprave  the  public  taste.  Five 
years  later,  Goethe  discovered  that  he  and  his  younger 
rival  were  at  one  in  their  artistic  aspirations. 

Classical  Ideal  of  Goethe  and  Schiller. — The 
comradeship  of  Goethe  and  Schiller  is  always  regarded 
as  one  of  the  most  remarkable  personal  incidents  in  the 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE   IN  GERMANY    273 

history  of  literature.  To  those  also  who  care  to  trace 
in  individuals  the  logical  outcome  of  society's  moods, 
it  affords  a  signal  example  of  that  action  of  social 
conditions  on  great  men,  and  of  great  men  on  current 
ideals,  in  which  consists  much  of  humanity's  advance 
in  spiritual  culture.  Both  Goethe  and  Schiller  began 
their  careers  by  reproducing  and  heightening  the  deeper 
feelings  of  their  countrymen.  Both  represented  a 
revulsion  from  the  existing  state  of  things,  and  a  yearn- 
ing for  an  order  more  grateful  to  Germany's  awakening 
needs.  But  neither  could  directly  modify  external 
conditions,  and  both  were  compelled  to  follow  the 
general  tendency  to  seek  consolation  in  the  world  of 
imagination.  Now  Goethe  and  Schiller,  when  the 
impetuousness  of  youth  was  spent,  saw  with  regret  that 
their  early  productions  were  without  form,  and  incapable 
of  satisfying  the  matured  intellect.  They  felt  that  if 
art  was  to  be  to  them  a  self-sufficient  world  it  would 
have  to  be  controlled  by  laws  of  its  own.  Hence  the 
initial  belief  in  the  close  connection  of  true  poetry  with 
national  life  and  genius  came  to  be  abandoned  in 
behalf  of  an  insulated  conception  of  art.  Schiller  went 
the  length  of  maintaining  against  Herder  that  it  was 
no  sufficient  reason  for  seeking  poetic  material  in 
northern  mythology  because  thereby  German  peculi- 
arities in  thought  and  language  could  fully  be  retained. 
He  even  declared  that  the  poet  must  withdraw  beyond 
the  boundaries  of  the  real  world,  and  form  a  sphere  for 
himself  by  becoming  "through  the  Greek  myths  the 
kinsman  of  a  distant,  strange,  and  ideal  age." 

Goethe,  Schiller,  and  German  Culture. — To 
determine  the  intrinsic  merit  of  the  works  produced 
under  these  circumstances  is  a  problem  for  literary 
critics.  For  the  general  historian  it  is  sufficient  to 
know  that  while  they  thus  became  poets  for  all  time, 


274        HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

Goethe  and  Schiller  did  not  withdraw  themselves 
entirely  from  immediate  contact  with  their  generation. 
The  latter,  indeed,  never  lost  his  position  of  great 
German  patriotic  poet,  though  artistic  excellence 
became  the  first  object  in  his  own  mind.  By  his 
Wallenstein,  Schiller  inspired  Germans  with  that  trust 
in  themselves  which  the  possession  of  a  tragedy  in  the 
great  style  must  ever  awaken  in  a  sensitive  people  ;  and 
in  Wilhelm  Tell  he  openly  returned  to  his  original 
theme  of  freedom,  and  presented  it  again  in  a  more 
enduring  and  ennobling  form.  His  strenuous  efforts 
to  explicate  the  theory  and  influence  of  art  were  also 
not  without  effect  on  the  minds  of  his  countrymen ;  but 
in  this  matter  he  could  achieve  less  than  his  older,  more 
cultured,  and  longer  lived  friend. 

The  German  Ideal  of  Culture. — That  it  is  the 
special  vocation  of  the  German  people  to  elucidate  and 
realize  the  richest  and  most  universal  elements  of  civili- 
zation, has  been  claimed  again  and  again  by  Germans 
themselves.  During  the  period  here  reviewed,  Fichte 
had  asserted  as  much  and  more  in  his  Reden^  which  were 
delivered  in  the  winter  1807-8.  **  It  is  you,"  he  cried  to 
the  German  nation,  **to  whom,  out  of  all  other  modern 
nations,  the  germs  of  human  perfection  are  especially 
committed,  and  on  whom  the  foremost  place  in  the 
onward  advance  towards  their  development  is  conferred. 
If  you  sink  to  nothing  in  this,  your  peculiar  office,  then 
with  you  the  hopes  of  humanity  for  salvation  out  of  all 
its  evils  are  likewise  overthrown."  Although  Carlyle 
has  handed  down  to  us  a  melancholy  account  of  English 
delusions  about  things  German  in  the  early  part  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  it  is  not  necessary  to  resort  to 
Madame  de  Stael  for  independent  confirmation  of 
Fichte's  view.  In  the  earlier  part  of  his  career,  Dr. 
Thomas  Young,  the  anticipator  of  Champollion  in  the 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE   IN  GERMANY    275 

interpretation  of  Egyptian  hieroglyphics,  and  the  origi- 
nator of  the  undulatory  theory  of  light,  who  was  perhaps 
the  most  talented  and  acute  thinker  of  his  day,  studied 
at  Gottingen,  and  took  the  opportunity  of  seeing  some- 
thing of  the  German  land  and  people  in  1797.  He 
acknowledged  that  "in  the  learned  world  the  great 
majority  are  mere  mechanical  labourers ; "  that  the 
"  established  custom  of  the  booksellers,  who  pay  every 
ordinary  writer  exactly  in  proportion  to  the  number  of 
sheets,  and  at  their  periodical  fairs  exchange  bulk  for 
bulk  of  every  kind  of  publication,  is  the  grand  impedi- 
ment— among  those  who  subsist  in  part  by  writing — to 
the  laconic  efforts  of  a  brilliant  genius,  and  the  cause 
that  the  innumerable  and  ever-increasing  heap  of 
volumes  envelopes  from  day  to  day  more  and  more  the 
sciences  which  it  is  designed  to  illustrate."  But  he 
returned  home  thinking  "  Germany  at  present  the  most 
interesting  country  to  a  traveller  of  any  in  Europe ;  not 
so  much  from  its  original  merit,  but  from  its  being  a 
kind  of  compendium  of  everything  that  is  excellent 
and  everything  that  is  remarkable  in  every  country 
existing." 

Social  Aspect  of  the  Literary  Revival. — The  first 
social  result  of  the  German  literary  revival  was  to  throw 
the  world  of  letters  open  to  the  whole  nation.  Literature 
passed  from  being  the  possession  of  a  learned  class  to 
be  the  common  property  of  all  intelligent  citizens.  And 
the  new  race  of  writers  surpassed  the  old  school  both  in 
social  consideration  and  knowledge  of  the  world.  One 
of  Frederick's  best  reasons  for  contemning  German 
books  had  been  the  cramped  circumstances  and  experi- 
ence of  German  authors.  But  the  new  aspirants  were 
able,  by  the  vigour  of  their  purpose,  their  own  merits, 
and  the  growing  sympathy  of  their  countrymen,  to 
assert  for  themselves  an   honourable  social   position ; 


276        HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

while  their  enterprising  spirit  led  them  to  seek  the 
advantages  of  travel  at  a  time  when  much  knowledge, 
which  in  these  days  can  be  obtained  at  one's  door,  was 
only  to  be  gained  by  making  arduous  journeys.  In  the 
space  of  fifty  years,  literature  succeeded  in  linking 
together  with  its  slender  bonds  every  grade  of  German 
society.  The  only  disadvantage  thus  involved  was  the 
proneness  of  the  upper  middle  class  to  gain  another 
step  on  the  nobility  by  claiming  the  licence  of  polite 
rank  in  moral  conduct.  Of  course,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  common  humanity,  the  approach  of  noble  to 
burgher  and  of  burgher  to  peasant,  of  Prussian  to 
Bavarian,  of  Saxon  to  Rhinelander,  was  still  very 
restrained ;  but,  viewed  in  relation  to  the  past,  it 
marked  all  the  difference  between  the  forlorn  and  the 
hopeful. 

Position  of  the  German  Stage. — Hence,  along  with 
the  main  stream  of  literary  development  flowed  a  large 
volume  of  popular  literature,  which  seldom  failed  to  be 
connected  with  the  principal  current.  It  was  now  that 
in  Germany  novels,  chiefly  of  very  inferior  character, 
began  to  dispense  on  all  sides  their  pitiful  renderings  of 
the  higher  intellectual  life  of  the  time.  But  what  sub- 
stance the  numberless  imitations  of  Pamela^  Sir  Charles 
Grandisoftj  and  the  Sentimental  Journey^  of  Werther, 
Gotz,  and  Die  Rduber^  contained  was  infinitely  better 
presented  to  the  public  in  the  drama.  This  was  the  most 
influential  period  of  the  German  stage.  When  mental 
activity  was  coming  into  vigour,  and  neither  newspapers 
nor  public  business  afforded  matter  of  general  interest, 
the  citizens  resorted  to  the  theatre  to  participate  in  the 
ideas  and  feelings  which  were  passing  through  the 
nation.  Here  they  first  made  acquaintance  with  the 
masterpieces  of  their  time,  and  were  given  by  superior 
actors  representations  of  Shakespeare's  works,  carefully 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE   IN  GERMANY    277 

adapted  to  their  capacities.  Here  they  received  plen- 
teous doses  of  chivalry  and  robber  plays,  and  looked 
upon  the  dramas  of  middle-class  life,  or  parodies  of  fate- 
tragedy.  At  the  same  time  they  were  often  diverted 
by  Kotzebue's  purposeless  inventions.  But  most  fre- 
quently they  found  their  amusement  in  something 
germane  to  their  higher  wants.  If  chivalry  or  robber 
plays  proved  tiresome,  resource  was  again  had  to  burgher 
plays,  in  which  the  chord  of  social  dissatisfaction  was 
still  harped  upon.  Indeed,  taste  for  the  theatre  some- 
times became  a  belief  that  the  stage  was  the  only 
sphere  in  which  a  humble  burgher  could  unfold  his 
potentialities.  Viewed  with  regard  to  historical  facts, 
Goethe's  choice  of  scene  for  Wilhelm  Meister's  Lehrjahre^ 
which  now  seems  almost  childish,  is  only  the  expression 
of  a  train  of  reasoning  very  natural  in  those  days.  As 
Faust  is  the  best  comment  on  the  dynamical  condition, 
so  this  novel  is  the  best  interpreter  of  the  statical  con- 
dition of  German  society  at  the  time,  and  Meister's 
singular  letter  to  Werner,  announcing  his  decision  to 
go  on  the  stage,  is  doubtless  an  accurate  account  of 
the  illusions  and  sophistries  into  which  an  aspiring 
young  burgher  of  weak  character  would  be  likely 
to  fall. 

Mozart  and  Music,  1756-91. — To  adduce  further 
evidence  of  the  depth  and  breadth  of  the  German 
literary  movement,  it  would  be  necessary  to  advert 
to  growths  which  are  properly  characteristic  of  a  later 
period.  In  painting,  sculpture,  and  music,  however, 
new  sources  of  vigour  were  attained  by  a  process  nearly 
parallel  with  that  observable  in  literary  art.  But  in  the 
history  of  Europe  music  only  attained  to  an  import- 
ance which  cannot  be  neglected  by  the  most  rapid  his- 
torian. Of  the  two  great  composers  of  Germany  during 
this  time,  one  at  any  rate  is  more  remarkable  as  a 


278         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

psychological  phenomenon  and  inspired  genius  than  as 
a  product  of  antecedents,  or  an  exponent  of  general 
history.  Mozart  is  a  wonder  of  the  period.  Yet  his 
works  are  formed  with  the  surest  regard  for  the  rules 
of  art,  with  an  unerring  sense  for  beauty  of  detail  and 
beauty  of  relation.  He  possessed  an  inexhaustible 
fund  of  melody,  perfect  command  over  all  contrapuntal 
devices,  and  equal  familiarity  with  all  forms  of  music 
from  the  symphony  and  mass  to  the  canzonet.  He 
appeared  at  a  time  when  instrumental  music  had  passed 
from  the  artless,  disconnected  melodies  of  the  dance, 
and  the  severe  counterpoint  of  the  fugue,  to  the  grand 
cyclic  forms  of  modern  art.  The  inception  of  the  sonata 
and  the  symphony  belongs  to  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  their  development  was  the  work  of  Haydn, 
who  also  published  the  first  string  quartet  in  1755. 
Mozart  succeeded  in  informing  with  his  genius  the 
various  types  of  musical  expression  ;  and  he  realized 
Gluck's  theory  of  opera — the  theory  which  organically 
united  libretto  and  music  into  a  single  intense  dramatic 
representation — in  a  manner  which  was  denied  alike  to 
Gluck's  limited  intuition  and  contrapuntal  ignorance. 
It  was  this  conjunction  of  individual  creativeness  with 
artistic  form,  of  fine  instinct  with  technical  mastery, 
which  caused  Goethe  to  say  that  Mozart  was  the  com- 
poser, and  Don  Giovanni  the  model,  for  the  ideal  setting 
of  Faust, 

Beethoven,  1770-1827.— -If  Mozart  is  the  most 
gifted  interpreter  of  the  groundwork  on  which  modern 
music  rests,  it  is  Beethoven  who  by  common  consent 
is  the  true  representative  in  the  poetry  of  sound  of  the 
historical  period  on  which  the  present  Europe  is  based. 
Among  great  musicians  Beethoven  was  of  slow  develop- 
ment ;  and  perhaps  it  was  this  circumstance  that  enabled 
him  to  reflect  so  well  the  passions  and  aspirations  of 


NATIONAL  LITERATURE   IN  GERMANY    279 

the  time  he  lived  in.  He,  the  Rhinelander,  says  Hettner, 
had  imbibed  the  culture  of  French  and  German  enlighten- 
ment ;  Klopstock  was  the  guide  of  his  youth  ;  Shake- 
speare, Goethe,  and  Schiller  were  the  favourite  poets  of 
his  manhood  ;  while  the  spirit  of  the  French  Revolution 
filled  his  whole  soul  with  a  fervid  yearning  for  political 
freedom  and  human  dignity.  By  his  immense  individual 
force  he  enlarged  the  scope  and  deepened  the  purpose 
of  musical  forms ;  through  his  intimate  sympathy  with 
the  times  he  gave  them  a  content  which  touches  modern 
minds  as  no  music  of  an  earlier  age  can.  In  him  the 
struggle,  which  his  works  expressed,  was  enhanced  by 
a  gloomy  disposition  and  physical  misfortune.  Yet  he 
remained  true  to  the  spirit  of  his  age,  and  in  his  titanic 
efforts  to  overcome  the  strife  pushed  the  bounds  of  his 
art  almost  beyond  the  line  of  all  possible  art. 

The  Pianoforte  and  Chamber  Music. — On  the 
other  hand,  by  his  gift  of  chamber  music,  Beethoven 
conferred  on  society  a  benefit  equal  to  the  boon 
bestowed  by  Handel  when  he  added  to  the  music  for 
church  and  theatre  the  elastic  programme  of  the  concert 
with  its  derivative  amateur  institutions.  "  In  studying 
Haydn's  chamber  music,"  says  Mr.  Hadow,  **  we  are 
often  surprised  by  a  note  of  presage,  a  hint  or  suggestion, 
not  yet  wholly  articulate,  which  seems  to  be  waiting  for 
corroboration  or  fulfilment.  During  the  middle  period 
of  his  life  it  was,  indeed,  a  matter  of  occasional  conjec- 
ture on  whom  the  mantle  of  his  inspiration  would  fall." 
The  mantle  fell  on  Beethoven.  The  pianoforte  dates 
from  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  It  was, 
indeed,  nothing  but  the  application  of  percussion  action 
to  the  spinet  and  harpsichord ;  but  compared  with  these 
it  yielded  a  measureless  range  of  musical  expression. 
This  instrument,  the  use  of  which  was  within  the 
capacity  of  all  private  people,  Beethoven  first  vested 


280         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

with  its  full  dignity,  profundity,  and  versatility ;  *  and 
in  so  doing  he  deepened  and  enriched  in  an  unique 
degree  the  purest  pleasures  of  home  life. 

*  His  early  sonatas  were  printed  with  the  superscription  **  for  piano- 
forte or  harpsichord."  About  this  time,  also,  the  introduction  of  the 
clarinet  into  the  orchestra  made  a  great  change  in  instrumentation.  It 
was  invented  by  Denner  of  Nuremberg  in  1690,  but  until  Mozart  no  one 
fully  realized  its  value. 


CHAPTER  XI 

NATURALISM  AND  THE  REVOLUTION  IN 
ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

"  O  ye  loud  Waves  !  and  O  ye  Forests  high  ! 

And  O  ye  Clouds  that  far  above  me  soared  I 
Thou  rising  Sun  !     Thou  blue  rejoicing  Sky  ! 

Yea,  everything  that  is  and  will  be  free  ! 
Bear  witness  for  me,  whereso'er  ye  be, 

With  what  deep  worship  I  have  still  adored 
The  Spirit  of  divinest  Liberty. 

"  When  France  in  wrath  her  giant-limbs  upreared, 

And  with  that  oath,  which  smote  earth,  air,  and  sea, 
Stamped  her  strong  foot  and  said  she  would  be  free. 
Bear  witness  for  me  how  I  hoped  and  feared  I " 

S.  T.  Coleridge. 

National  Character  of  English  Literature.  —  In 
England,  during  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  the  same  general  causes  as  those  which  obtained 
in  Germany  were  operating  to  evoke  new  developments 
in  literature.  Here  also  the  expansion  of  society  pro- 
moted the  diffusion  of  letters  and  the  independence  of 
authorship.  Johnson  had  been  able  to  give  a  final  blow 
to  the  practice  of  patronage ;  though  Adam  Smith  still 
had  reason  to  speak  of  writers  as  that  "  unprosperous 
race,"  and  Crabbe  had  yet  to  find  in  Burke  a  generous 
benefactor.  Here,  too,  the  influence  of  France,  by 
concentrating  attention  on  elegance  and  correctness  of 
style,  had  produced  ideals  and  work  which  could  not 

281 


282         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

satisfy  the  feelings  and  aspirations  of  a  ruder  and  more 
natural  public.  Yet  literature  in  England  was  still 
English.  Pope,  the  master  of  the  superfine  school  of 
taste,  was  also  a  master  of  his  generation  in  ideas ;  and 
when  the  culture  of  town  wits  ceased  to  embody  the 
intellectual  capacity  of  the  nation,  literature  was  not  to 
be  classed  as  an  alien  craft  because  its  recent  develop- 
ment happened  to  have  been  characterized  by  over- 
powering solicitude  for  artificial  forms  and  conven- 
tionalized figures. 

Need  of  Realism. — In  prose  fiction  the  wants  of 
a  more  robust  public  had  already  been  met  by  work 
of  the  first  merit.  The  translations  and  imitations  of 
French  romances  had  been  superseded  by  the  true  novel 
of  life.  Richardson  published  Pamela^  and  Fielding 
published  Joseph  Andrews^  in  1741-42 ;  and  Tom  Jones 
and  Clarissa  Harlowe  appeared  within  the  next  ten 
years.  Now  the  novel  was  born  as  a  work  of  art 
because  it  was  produced  as  an  imaginative  study  of 
natural  truth.  One  reason  why  this  was  possible  was 
because  prose  fiction  had  been  left  unencumbered  by 
rules  of  taste.  Such  freedom  was  in  some  sort  due  to 
the  novel's  reputed  inferiority  of  status.  As  the  new 
agriculture  and  the  new  manufactures  flourished  most 
readily  where  the  rules  of  the  past  were  of  least  avail, 
so  English  literature  attained  excellence  most  imme- 
diately where  it  was  least  hampered  by  canons,  pre- 
cedents, and  tradition.  Yet  the  circumstances  of  the 
novel's  rapid  attainment  to  artistic  worth  and  social 
importance  yielded  a  lesson  to  the  method  of  poetry 
itself.  Poetry,  indeed,  even  within  its  own  self-restricted 
sphere,  was  verging  on  exhaustion.  The  art  of  elegance 
and  arbitrary  rule  did  not  admit  of  infinite  elaboration. 
When  Pope  had  given  his  version,  little  was  left  for 
other  writers  to  achieve,  though  what  had  been  done 


NATURALISM  IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE     283 

was  so  far  from  being  a  barren  performance  that  without 
it  later  poetry  would  not  have  been  possible.  Thus  if 
the  secret  of  fashioning  couplets  in  artificial  diction  on 
conventionalized  subjects  had  been  imparted  to  every- 
one possessed  of  a  facility  for  versification — and  accord- 
ingly in  many  circles  such  verses  were  lavishly  offered 
at  the  shrine  of  culture — no  space  existed  under  the 
accepted  limitations  within  which  original  genius  might 
unfold  itself.  In  pictorial  art  the  English  mind  had 
recently  contended  with  some  success  against  equally 
false  traditions  from  abroad.  Though  in  this  sphere 
it  had  started  under  a  load  of  preconceptions,  guided 
only  by  the  study  of  Italian  old  masters,  it  had  at  once 
instinctively  followed  the  style  most  congruous  with  the 
national  genius  as  manifested  in  the  novel.  If,  there- 
fore, a  new  field  was  required  for  poetry,  it  must  lie,  as 
seemed  most  probable,  in  the  same  direction,  in  the 
regions  of  realism  and  actual  life. 

Tendency  to  Compromise. — The  habit  of  mind 
which  had  favoured  the  pursuit  of  correctness  in  poetry 
was,  however,  closely  connected  with  the  desire  of  the 
age  to  take  things  as  they  were,  without  hazarding 
extravagances  in  any  quarter.  The  same  motive  which 
induced  a  spirit  of  compromise  in  philosophical  and 
theological  disputation,  urged  men  to  defend  the 
activity  of  their  imaginations  from  meanness  or  excess 
by  agreeing  upon  a  narrow  code  of  literary  taste.  Such 
aims  were  reasonable  enough  after  the  experiences  of  the 
preceding  period,  but  they  were  necessarily  of  a  temporary 
character.  All  compromises  rest  on  principles,  of  which, 
sooner  or  later,  some  obtain  ascendency  and  issue  in 
radical  change.  Those  in  England  of  the  eighteenth 
century  ultimately  resolved  themselves  into  tendencies 
of  very  decided  character. 

Methodism     and    Realism. — In    the    sphere    of 


284         HISTORY   OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

religion,  dislike  of  extravagance  was  especially  strong. 
Among  the  faithful  and  the  sceptics  alike  reigned 
aversion  from  extreme  conclusions  and  intense  feeling. 
A  horror  of  enthusiasm  dominated  spiritual  teachers, 
and  the  idolatry  of  sound  sense,  with  its  offerings  of 
moralizing  sermons,  occupied  for  many  years  the 
established  altars.  But  a  generation  grew  up  which 
knew  not  the  ugly  aspect  of  religious  zeal,  which  was 
unaffrighted  by  visions  of  fanaticism.  Large  classes 
arose  who  had  lost  consciousness  of  the  strifes  of  their 
ancestors,  and  had  not  been  retained  by  culture  in  the 
groove  of  worldly  indifference.  To  these  people  the 
religion  of  prudential  equilibrium  had  no  meaning.  It 
did  not  touch  their  religious  consciousness  even  to 
harden  it,  but  left  it  slumbering  in  total  seclusion. 
When,  therefore,  the  Methodist  movement  proceeded 
from  Oxford  to  address  the  nation  at  large ;  when  the 
all-pervading  presence  of  the  Deity  was  insisted  upon, 
and  the  reality  of  the  religious  life  within  was  appealed 
to  ;  when  every  thought,  motive,  and  action  was  declared 
to  have  a  relation  to  religion,  and  the  true  kingdom  of 
God  was  shown  to  be  a  state  of  the  soul ;  when,  too, 
men's  minds  were  bewildered  by  the  hopes  and  fears 
begotten  of  a  confused  belief  in  the  depravity  yet 
spirituality  of  human  nature,  in  the  nearness  yet 
separateness  of  the  Almighty; — then  the  policy  of 
sound  sense,  the  lukewarmness  of  the  Church,  and  the 
worldliness  of  its  ministers  were  found  to  have  neglected 
a  great  want  in  the  life  of  the  people.  A  time  came 
when  the  Church  itself  was  touched  by  the  spirit  of 
earnestness.  Some  of  the  zeal  of  Methodism  passed 
into  it,  and  some  of  the  passion  of  rivalry  stirred  its 
enthusiasm.  Yet  the  improvement  was  due  not  solely 
to  the  work  of  Whitefield  and  the  Wesleys,  but  in  part 
to  the  same  causes  which  had  produced  the  Methodist 


NATURALISM  IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE    285 

movement.  The  Church  also  experienced  in  its  own 
behalf  the  need  of  truer  and  intenser  ideals,  and  sank 
of  its  own  accord  not  a  little  practical  worldliness  in 
solicitude  for  the  real  interests  of  immortal  souls.  In 
like  manner,  if  the  first  poet  to  abandon  the  artificial 
method  was  a  religious  hypochondriac  and  a  Methodist 
scorner  of  life  in  towns  and  polite  society,  he  was  also 
the  spokesman  of  a  feeling  which  demanded  a  more 
natural  content  and  a  less  constrained  form  in  literature. 
Cowper;  «*The  Task,"  1784. — As  a  matter  of 
biography  it  would  appear  that  Cowper  would  never 
have  been  an  original  poet  unless  he  had  suffered  from 
insanity,  and  his  insanity  had  taken  a  religious  form 
from  the  revivalism  of  the  day.  Owing  to  this  mis- 
fortune he  found  an  asylum  among  tender  and  pious 
friends,  where  his  feeble  nature  could  luxuriate  in  the 
homely  and  rural  delights  of  uneventful  living  which  his 
poetry  was  to  present  to  the  world  as  a  new  revelation 
of  itself.  The  writing  of  poetry  was  recommended  to 
him  by  these  friends  in  order  to  defend  his  mind  from 
madness.  But  the  work  which  established  his  fame, 
the  work  which  made  him  an  originator,  was  prompted 
by  one  more  conversant  with  the  outside  world.  Newton 
and  Mrs.  Unwin  encouraged  Cowper  to  write  hymns 
and  moral  satires ;  it  was  Lady  Austen  who  suggested 
to  him  composition  in  blank  verse  on  an  unconventional 
subject.  The  Task  was  written  by  a  "  stricken  deer  that 
left  the  herd  long  since,"  when  called  to  "  dress  a  Sofa 
with  the  flow'rs  of  verse;"  and  its  truth  to  Nature's 
humblest  features,  its  unconscious  departure  from  that 
servitude  to  consequence  which  strung  the  literature  of 
the  century  on  a  chain  of  "fors"  and  "  therefores," 
its  deliberate  abandonment  of  the  prevailing  critical 
canons,  were  the  results  of  a  revulsion  from  current 
ideals,  which  sprang  up  in  the  seclusion  of  the  Olney 


286         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

parlour  under  the  stimulus  of  feminine  vivacity.  The 
great  popularity  of  the  poem  was,  no  doubt,  in  great 
part  due  to  its  celebration  of  the  hearth,  and  to  its 
evangelical  piety,  in  both  of  which  respects  it  came  into 
closest  accord  with  the  rising  comfortable  classes.  It 
owed,  however,  not  a  little  of  its  fame  to  the  qualities 
which  made  Cowper  to  England  what  Rousseau  was  to 
France.  That  love  of  lowly  realism,  that  feeling  for 
nature  and  a  rural  life,  that  sympathy  with  the  poor, 
even  that  religious  introspection  which  corresponded  to 
the  morbid  self-examination  of  the  later  writer,  were  to 
a  society,  sound  at  the  core,  what  Rousseau's  naturalism 
was  to  a  society  corrupted  throughout. 

Crabbe ;  "  The  Village,"  1783.— Though  accurate  to 
nature  in  her  milder  and  more  kindly  aspects,  Cowper's 
poetry  failed  to  present  in  equal  truthfulness  the  harsher 
features  even  of  the  rustic  life  which  he  loved  so  well. 
"  God  made  the  country,  and  man  made  the  town  "  is  an 
opinion  which  seems  to  have  caused  him  to  forget  that 
the  devil  dwells  in  both.  This  defect  of  conception — 
a  defect  fatal  to  the  artistic  sufficiency  of  naturalism — 
was  in  some  sort  made  good  by  Crabbe,  who  published 
his  first  work  of  importance.  The  Village,  about  the  same 
time  that  The  Task  appeared.  In  Crabbe's  unflinching 
descriptions  of  the  grim  side  of  common  life,  the  art  of 
realism  never  rises  above  prose ;  but  the  effect  obtained 
by  rigorously  treating  the  sadder  aspect  of  human  exis- 
tence "as  Truth  will  paint  it  and  as  bards  will  not," 
even  in  couplets  of  inferior  elegance,  completed  in  good 
time  the  lesson  which  it  was  indispensable  to  learn 
before  a  new  growth  of  poetry  became  possible. 

Burns,  1759-96. — Cowper  wrote  not  for  the  world 
nor  for  critics,  but  simply  to  exercise  the  activity  within 
him.  This  was  the  main  reason  why,  invertebrate  being 
though  he  was,  he  succeeded  in  initiating  a  return  to 


NATURALISM  IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE    287 

the  genuine  sources  of  poetry.  Two  years  after  The 
Task  was  published,  there  appeared  in  Kilmarnock  a 
volume  of  poems  by  one  who,  according  to  his  own  con- 
fession, rhymed  neither  for  spite,  money,  nor  notoriety, 
but  for  fun.  He,  too,  was  a  singer  of  feeble  will ;  he, 
too,  was  pursued  by  a  madness  of  his  own,  the  madness 
of  undisciplined  passions.  So  far,  the  peasant  Burns 
corresponds  with  the  gentleman,  Cowper.  Both  poets, 
moreover,  admired  one  another.  Cowper's  preference 
for  "  a  manly  rough  line  with  a  deal  of  meaning  in  it, 
rather  than  a  whole  poem  of  musical  periods  that  have 
nothing  but  their  oily  smoothness  to  recommend  them," 
led  him  as  closely  towards  the  Scotch  poet,  as  did  his 
mild  religion  and  homely  feeling  draw  towards  himself 
the  singer  of  the  Cotter's  Saturday  Night,  and  the  satirist 
of  the  Auld  Lights.  But  Burns  did  not  serve  his  genius 
by  abandoning  his  class.  He  remained  true  to  his  con- 
dition of  sturdy,  independent  peasanthood,  though  his 
tenderness,  insight,  and  feeling  for  nature  made  him  a 
poet.  For  this  reason,  while  he  shares  with  Cowper  the 
same  position  in  the  movement  which  produced  modern 
English  poetry,  he  far  transcends  him  in  historical  sig- 
nificance and  abiding  merit. 

Burns  and  the  Revolutionary  Spirit. — Burns  was 
no  nursling  of  middle-class  comfort  and  religious  solici- 
tude, reared  to  exhibit  that  aspect  of  natural  truth  which 
fashion  from  the  past  and  the  industrialism  of  the  future 
seemed  about  to  hide  for  ever.  He  was  a  true  son  of 
the  soil,  even  of  Ayrshire  soil.  In  Germany,  men  had 
to  obtain  their  folksongs  through  collectors,  their  senti- 
ment through  foreign  writers,  their  sedition  from  the 
French  Revolution,  their  enthusiasm  from  youth,  their 
awe  from  mystics,  their  earnestness  from  philosophers. 
In  Britain,  the  public  received  what  they  wanted  of  these 
elements  direct  from  home-born  genius.     From  Burns 


288         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

it  received  the  best  content,  the  most  touching  forms, 
of  popular  song ;  from  him,  the  nafvest  declaration  of 
manhood's  rights  and  dignity ;  from  him,  the  lessons  of 
country  life  and  natural  objects.  On  Scotland  itself 
Burns  conferred  what  Scotsmen  alone  can  express.  In 
general  history  he  was  one  of  the  first  influences  to 
shape  the  union  into  a  bond  of  reciprocal  service  and 
respect.  Scotch  culture  had  been  dominated  by  French 
forms  and  English  fashions  till,  as  Burns  himself  said, 
it  spun  thread  so  fine  that  it  was  fit  for  neither  weft  nor 
woof.  Scottish  memories  were  almost  as  lifeless  as  the 
Jacobite  cause ;  England's  unreasoning  dislike  was 
accepted  as  part  of  the  nature  of  things.  Burns,  who 
desired  to  do  something  "  for  puir  auld  Scotia's  sake," 
did  much  to  change  all  this,  as  did  Scott  in  the  next 
generation.  In  general  history,  again.  Burns  is  con- 
spicuous, in  that  he  first  united  in  British  literature 
modern  naturalism  with  the  spirit  of  the  Revolution. 
At  first,  gauger  though  he  was,  with  wife  and  weans 
who  "  maun  hae  brose  and  brats  o*  duddies,"  dependent 
on  his  employment  in  the  service  of  an  affrighted  govern- 
ment, he  responded  with  incautious  zeal  to  the  revolu- 
tionary outburst.  But  when  the  French  threatened  to 
invade  England,  and  the  exciseman  had  become  a 
volunteer,  Burns'  sedition  conformed  to  the  real  con- 
dition of  things ;  and  the  verse  which  follows  the  well- 
known  stanza  on  "  The  Kettle  o'  the  Kirk  and  State  " 
expressed  very  chastened  sentiments — 

"  The  wretch  that  wad  a  tyrant  own, 

And  the  wretch  his  true-born  brother. 
Who  would  set  the  mob  aboon  the  throne. 

May  they  be  damned  together  ! 
Who  will  not  sing  *  God  save  the  King  1 ' 

Shall  hang  as  high  's  the  steeple  ; 
But  while  we  sing  '  God  save  the  King,* 

We'll  ne'er  forget  the  people." 


REVOLUTION  IN   ENGLISH  LITERATURE     289 

Influence  of  the  French  Revolution. — The  union 
of  naturalism  with  the  revolutionary  spirit  is  the  key- 
to  the  groundwork  of  modern  British  poetry.  In  Burns 
it  found  earliest  expression  because  his  genius  was  torn 
by  a  fierce  conflict  with  animal  passions  and  social 
jealousies.  When  it  reappeared  among  English  poets, 
the  Revolution  itself  had  appealed  directly  to  all  minds, 
and  naturalism  had  passed  from  spontaneous  utterances 
of  the  simple-minded  to  the  reasoned  statements  of  self- 
conscious  innovators.  The  early  hopes  of  the  French 
Revolution  nowhere  found  purer  or  warmer  faith  than 
in  the  minds  of  those  who  were  about  to  reanimate 
English  poetry.  Wordsworth,  Southey,  and  Coleridge 
were  sanguine  youths  when  the  outbreak  took  place. 
Each,  according  to  the  nature  of  his  character,  partici- 
pated in  the  illusions  and  contumacy  which  the  event 
produced.  According  to  their  dispositions,  too,  all  three 
underwent  the  reaction  excited  by  the  progress  of  affairs 
in  France.  But  on  such  minds  the  Revolution  could 
not  exert  a  most  lively  influence  only  to  suffer  complete 
negation.  How  far  the  effects  of  such  an  experience 
may  have  contributed  to  their  subsequent  development 
could  be  determined  only  by  the  most  subtle  of  biogra- 
phical studies.  Evident  it  is  that  their  sense  of  personal 
independence  and  their  lofty  moral  aims  owed  not  a 
little  to  the  elevation  of  mind  obtained  in  youth  from 
contemplating  the  prospect  of  a  more  generous  social 
order.  Evident  it  is  that  their  self-confidence  and  fear- 
lessness of  criticism  were  chastened  and  fortified  by 
wrestling  with  consequent  disillusion.  "  I  maintained  a 
strife,"  says  Wordsworth  in  The  Excursion — 

**  Hopeless,  and  still  more  hopeless  every  hour  j 
But,  in  the  process,  I  began  to  feel 
That,  if  the  emancipation  of  the  world 
Were  missed,  I  should  at  least  secure  my  owilf 
And  be  in  part  compensated." 
U 


290         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

Southey,  1774-1843. — From  Southey,  the  one  of  the 
three  friends  who  possessed  far  the  least  genius  and  far 
the  most  faculty  for  literary  production,  enthusiasm  for 
the  Revolution  received  expression  in  Joan  of  Arc  and 
Wat  TyleVy  the  first  results  of  his  industry.  Then  he 
gradually  became  aware  that  human  improvement  is  a 
tedious  affair,  and,  while  retaining  his  belief  in  the 
certainty  and  indefiniteness  of  progress,  exchanged  his 
Deism,  Girondism,  and  Pantisocracy  for  the  Anglican 
Church,  the  British  Constitution,  and  the  politics  of  the 
Quarterly  Review.  As  a  poet,  Southey  loyally  adhered 
to  his  faith  in  the  moralities.  But  his  best  work  in  this 
direction  did  not  raise  him  to  the  first  rank  either 
among  those  who  realize  or  those  who  initiate,  while 
the  length  and  unequal  merit  of  his  most  ambitious 
efforts,  and  his  habit  of  choosing  remote  subjects,  con- 
victed him  before  the  public  of  the  charge  made  by  his 
worst  enemy — that  his  "  epic  mountains  seldom  fail  in 
mice."  His  life  is  memorable  rather  as  that  of  a  trusty 
man  of  letters  than  as  that  of  a  man  with  a  message. 
But  for  England  to  have  at  this  time  a  powerful 
biographer,  historian,  and  essayist,  who  united  the  idea 
of  constitutional  order  with  the  remembrance  of  revo- 
lutionary hope,  was  an  advantage  which  has  been  too 
much  overlooked. 

S.  T.  Coleridge,  1772-1834. — To  lovers  of  poetry, 
Coleridge  is  head  of  no  school,  the  representative  of  no 
group  or  movement,  but  the  writer  of  the  Ancient 
Mariner  and  Christabel.  Yet  he  was  closely  concerned 
in  erecting  an  ideal  of  naturalism,  and  his  power  of 
critical  disquisition  made  him  an  instructor  to  all  who 
addressed  themselves  seriously  to  the  problems  of  poetic 
subjects  and  forms.  In  the  sphere  of  ethics,  religion, 
and  philosophy,  he  was  in  the  next  generation  to 
mediate  between   English    utilitarianism   and   German 


REVOLUTION   IN  ENGLISH   LITERATURE     291 

transcendentalism.  In  the  period  here  considered  he 
came  forth  to  preserve  for  the  panic-stricken  party  of 
order  the  redeeming  faith  of  the  Revolution.  Coleridge's 
conservatism  was  no  craven  dread  of  the  doctrines  of 
reason,  nor  was  it  a  blind  resort  to  prejudice  and  tra- 
dition. His  function  rather  was  to  rescue  reason  from 
the  wave  of  reaction,  and  to  claim  for  it  the  authority 
of  which  bewildered  Toryism  had  well-nigh  lost  sight. 
He  sought,  indeed,  to  give  a  reasoned  account  of  what 
existed,  and  to  make  good  the  distinctions  in  man's 
moral  and  spiritual  nature.  History,  he  knew,  must  be 
an  intelligible  development,  and  its  last  results  as  intel- 
ligible as  those  which  had  gone  before.  As  an  apologist 
for  the  past,  he  was  anti-revolutionary ;  as  a  believer  in 
reason,  he  advocated  the  policy  of  sober  reform. 

Wordsworth,  1770-1850. — On  the  brooding  and 
stubborn  spirit  of  Wordsworth  the  Revolution  made  a 
profounder  impression  than  on  the  minds  of  Southey 
and  Coleridge.  The  import  of  the  great  event  to 
rational  spectators  is  recorded  in  his  works  more  pre- 
cisely and  durably  than  in  any  other  contemporary 
documents.  But  the  steadfastness  of  his  will  and  the 
stability  of  his  intellect,  the  secluded  habit  of  his  life 
and  the  benignity  of  his  disposition,  render  it  impossible 
to  trace  any  definite  portion  of  his  teaching  to  the 
influence  of  his  early  experience.  It  is  certain,  however, 
that  reflection  on  the  vicissitudes  of  France  persuaded 
him  that  individuals  may  still  wield  great  powers  over 
their  brethren,  and  heightened  his  belief  in  his  own 
fitness  to  be  a  teacher  of  men.  As  Coleridge  was  first 
of  all  an  orator  and  preacher,  so  Wordsworth  was  a 
leader  and  moralist.  The  one  missed  the  pulpit  of 
Unitarian  chapels,  the  rostrum  of  the  lecture-room,  and 
the  vocation  of  the  journalist,  to  deliver  monologues  to 
the  inquirers  who  came  to  Highgate ;  the  other  was 


292         HISTORY   OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

saved  from  entering  into  public  affairs  in  order  to 
deliver  to  the  world  from  his  retirement  at  the  lakes 
his  theory  of  poetry  and  his  criticism  of  life. 

W^ordsworth's  View  of  Nature. — In  denouncing 
the  conventional  subjects  and  language  of  poetry, 
Wordsworth  fell  into  the  opposite  error,  which,  to  use 
a  simile  of  Sismondi,  would  lead  a  sculptor  to  clothe 
his  statue  with  real  instead  of  marble  vestments.  The 
necessary  corrections  and  elucidations  were  provided  by 
the  appreciative  criticism  of  Coleridge.  But  Words- 
worth's critical  writings,  even  with  Coleridge's  help, 
would  have  achieved  but  little  if  they  had  not  been 
supported  and  completed  by  his  poetry.  The  lesson 
he  taught  the  world  came  from  the  poet's  sense  of  the 
oneness  of  nature  with  man,  and  the  glory  he  shed  on 
external  appearances  by  viewing  them  in  the  light  of 
this  connection.  The  vulgar  dualism  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  subverted  by  Kant  in  philosophy,  Wordsworth 
dispassionately  refuted  by  constantly  dwelling  on  the 
intimations  of  a  real  unity.  Instead  of  regarding  nature 
as  a  cunning  piece  of  mechanism,  admirable  in  itself, 
and  worshipful  on  account  of  a  supposed  cause — instead 
of  reflecting  on  nature's  landscape  as  the  mother  and 
support  of  men,  as  the  scene  of  life  and  the  condition 
of  adventure,  dear  for  its  bounties  and  romantic  from 
its  associations — Wordsworth  dwelt  on  the  nature  which 
is  as  much  man's  moral  and  intellectual  existence  as  it 
is  the  ground  of  his  physical  life.  He  did  not  begin 
from  man,  and  trace  the  features  of  his  environment  to 
his  percipient  mind.  He  concentrated  his  gaze  on  the 
external  world  itself,  till  it  took  on  a  new  aspect  and 
betrayed  unnoticed  relations  to  man's  higher  self. 
"  Poems,"  he  said,  "  to  which  any  value  can  be  attached, 
were  never  produced  on  any  variety  of  subjects  but  by 
a  man  who,  being  possessed  of  more  than  usual  organic 


REVOLUTION  IN   ENGLISH   LITERATURE     293 

sensibility,  had  also  thought  long  and  deeply."  And  in 
a  letter  written  towards  the  end  of  his  life,  he  spoke  of 
the  spirituality  with  which  he  had  endeavoured  to  invest 
the  material  universe,  and  the  moral  relations  under 
which  he  wished  to  exhibit  its  most  ordinary  appearances. 
Everything  familiar  to  us  he  held  to  be  proper  subjects 
of  the  poet's  art  He  doubted  not  that,  if  the  scientific 
conceptions  of  the  Kosmos  become  perfectly  familiarized 
to  men,  the  poet  will  be  ready  to  "  aid  the  transfigura- 
tion, and  will  welcome  the  being  thus  produced  as  a 
dear  and  genuine  inmate  of  the  household  of  man." 
That  Wordsworth's  view  of  nature  and  man  will  not 
bear  statement  in  exact  terms  is,  of  course,  evident. 
Wordsworth  was  no  metaphysician ;  but  he  occupied 
a  position  between  common  sense  and  philosophic 
reason  which  forms  a  happy  halting-place  for  many 
sensitive  minds,  by  whom  the  grand  problem  of 
existence  can  be  seen  but  vaguely  by  help  of  sensuous 
imagination. 

Wordsworth  and  Poetic  Naturalism. — Thus  in 
Wordsworth  English  poetry  arrived  at  truth  to  nature 
other  than  the  mechanical  and  scientific  conceptions 
which  had  been  employed  by  Thomson  and  Darwin. 
It  arrived,  indeed,  at  what  is  distinctively  poetic 
truth.  The  principle  may  be  called  the  naturalism  of 
poetry,  as  opposed  to  the  naturalism  of  science  and 
conduct.  If  its  acceptance  in  diction  took  different 
forms  from  what  Wordsworth  intended,  its  influence  on 
the  themes  of  poets  was  direct  and  enduring.  Generally 
viewed,  the  new  naturalism  was  a  part  of  the  revolu- 
tionary movement  which  displaced  in  modern  life  the 
tyranny  of  convention  by  the  rule  of  realism.  It  was, 
in  truth,  realism  of  the  most  refined  kind  applied  to  the 
relations  of  man  with  nature.  The  relations  of  man 
to  man  were  left  untouched  by  it;  and  Wordsworth's 


294        HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

treatment  of  morals  differed  not  from  that  of  the  most 
regular  didactic  writers. 

Literature  and  Cant. — Now,  much  as  literature 
had  done  to  bring  about  the  social  and  political  revo- 
lution, there  still  remained  two  urgent  functions  for  it 
to  discharge.  One  was  that  of  fortifying  the  more 
manly  minds  against  reaction,  and  helping  them  to 
consolidate  and  extend  the  gains  from  the  revolutionary 
movement.  The  other  was  to  combat  the  return  of 
convention's  sway  over  the  masters  of  European  society. 
The  first  end  was  proper  to  all  literature  of  worth  ;  the 
second  belonged  to  a  somewhat  peculiar  class  of  writing. 
The  new  masters  of  society  had  risen  by  their  own 
industry.  For  this  reason  they  were  in  little  danger  of 
suffering  from  too  great  regard  for  prescriptive  distinc- 
tions. Their  ascendency  was  moral  and  practical,  not 
traditional.  This  circumstance  involved  dangers  of  its 
own.  When  men  feel  that  their  position  depends  on 
their  moral  and  practical  superiority,  they  strenuously 
endeavour  to  maintain  the  appearance  of  blameless 
respectability.  Hence,  being  men  of  passions  and 
weaknesses,  like  those  of  the  class  they  superseded,  the 
middle  class  ran  a  risk  of  being  oversolicitous  for  the 
semblance  of  right  living,  and  too  little  heedful  of  the 
virtues  of  candour  and  sincerity.  They  were  in  danger 
of  becoming  subject  to  the  convention  of  cant  as  their 
predecessors  had  been  to  the  convention  of  birth.  The 
danger  was  the  more  imminent,  because  in  the  industrial 
life  men's  dealings  are  greatly  affected  by  reputation. 
It  was  the  more  formidable  because  the  sansculottism 
of  the  early  revolution  had  given  a  great  incentive  to 
hypocrisy  without  imparting  a  single  ethical  advantage 
to  civilized  life. 

Byron  and  Reaction,  1788-1824. — It  is  only  by 
remembering  the  moral  dangers  which  accompanied  the 


REVOLUTION   IN  ENGLISH   LITERATURE  .  295 

industrial  order  of  society,  and  by  keeping  in  mind  the 
political  perils  which  reaction  threatened  in  the  days  of 
the  Grand  Alliance,  that  it  is  possible  to  appreciate  the 
work  of  Lord  Byron.  Viewed  in  connection  with  his 
own  generation,  he  who  was  long  regarded  as  the  most 
immoral  and  reckless  of  modern  poets,  the  head  of 
Southey's  Satanic  school,  appears  to  have  been  in  fact 
a  strong  partisan  on  the  side  of  moral  health  and  social 
freedom.  It  is  curious  that  the  poet  to  do  this  for 
bourgeois  Europe  was  born  an  aristocrat,  and  lived  in 
excessive  pride  of  his  rank.  Yet,  unless  it  had  been  so, 
Byron  would  hardly  have  felt  that  disregard  of  propriety, 
that  distrust  of  respectable  appearances,  that  love  of 
revolt,  which  poverty,  social  disappointment,  and  riotous 
living  engendered  in  his  passionate  and  rebellious  soul. 
Unless  he  had  felt  thus,  he  could  not  have  flung  with 
such  effect  his  challenges  to  self-satisfied  virtue,  nor 
have  given  equal  encouragement  to  those  who  strove  to 
complete  the  emancipation  of  European  society.  It  was 
not  only  his  tributes  to  liberty  and  assaults  on  tyranny 
which  braced  the  minds  of  foreign  readers  ;  it  was  much 
more  the  contemplation  in  his  characters  of  a  gloomy 
indomitable  spirit,  fretting  against  the  tedium  of  life, 
but  doomed  to  gnawing  pain,  craving  knowledge  but 
scorning  obeisance,  of  a  spirit  like  Manfred's,  strong 
enough  to  be  a  hell  unto  itself,  yet  learning  only  that 
"'tis  not  so  difficult  to  die;"  of  a  spirit  like  Cain's, 
capable  of  aspiring  to  cheat  death  with  death,  yet 
succeeding  only  in  drying  "the  fountain  of  a  gentle 
race."  And  this  spirit  he  set  forth  with  such  attraction 
for  the  whole  of  Europe  because  his  own  character  and 
history  had  bred  in  him  things  which,  as  Landor  said, 
were  as  strong  as  poison  and  as  original  as  sin.  In  like 
manner  his  outrages  on  domestic  sentiment  were  only 
the  tactics  of  a  satirist  who  had  the  misfortune  never 


296         HISTORY   OF   MODERN  EUROPE 

to  feel  its  sacred  nature,  though  he  could  cite  its  scrip- 
ture for  his  purpose.  Byron's  heroes,  even  when  they 
are  invested  with  melodramatic  interest  by  the  imputa- 
tion of  surpassing  guilt,  are  never  men  of  unfathomable 
turpitude,  nor  are  they  ever  protagonists  of  vice.  Every 
criminal  situation  is  the  result,  not  of  an  attractive 
fatality,  but  of  a  fortuitous  collocation  of  natural  circum- 
stances. If  sin  is  committed,  it  immediately  appears  as 
hollow  and  ridiculous  as  anything  else;  if  virtue  is 
traduced,  it  proves  to  be  on  the  whole  less  contemptible, 
and  much  less  disastrous,  than  boldest  vice.  The  inci- 
dents are  the  outcome  of  things  as  they  are,  and  of  men 
as  they  are ;  and  if  they  are  often  scandalous,  it  is  only 
because  it  is  of  the  nature  of  men  and  things  to  be 
productive  of  scandal.  This  implication  it  was  good 
for  demure  citizens  to  see  once  again  elucidated.*  It 
was  good,  too,  for  them  to  witness  the  pathos  and 
mockery,  the  tenderness  and  scorn,  which  the  outside 
of  this  life  excites  in  a  sensitive  yet  cynical  observer. 
Byron's  epic  of  life  had,  indeed,  manifold  lessons  for 
the  Pharisees  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Perhaps  it  is 
because  his  own  nation  is  the  most  pharisaical  of  the 
modern  world  that  the  present  writer  wonders  and 
puzzles  without  avail  when  foreigners  go  so  far  as  to 
rank  Don  Juan  with  Faust  among  the  philosophical 
poems  of  the  age. 

Shelley  and  Sedition,  1792-1822. — It  is  common  to 
regard  Byron  and  Shelley  as  the  poets  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, while  the  elder  writers  are  generally  classed  as 
reactionaries ;  but  it  would  be  hard  to  adduce  any 
intelligible  principle  to  justify  this  denial  of  historical 

*  Burns  had  already  given  the  same  lesson  to  Britain— 

"  Then  gently  scan  your  brother  Man, 
Still  gentler  sister  Woman." 


REVOLUTION   IN   ENGLISH   LITERATURE     297 

sequence.  That  Southey,  Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  and, 
in  his  own  exalted  sphere,  Landor,  were  closely  con- 
nected with  the  early  revolution,  is  demonstrable  as 
simple  biographical  fact,  while  in  the  tenor  and  results 
of  their  careers  the  influence  of  such  an  association  is 
continually  evident.  That  in  due  time  the  sobriety  of 
disillusion  and  middle  age  supervened,  only  makes  their 
participation  in  the  new-born  hopes  the  more  intimate 
and  consistent.  Byron  and  Shelley,  on  the  other  hand, 
only  attained  to  manhood  when  enthusiasm  had  given 
way  to  despair.  Their  sedition,  though  it  was  their 
forte^  was  based  not  on  dreams  of  a  better  order,  but  on 
impatience  at  the  endurance  of  a  bad  one.  If  they 
must  be  given  a  cant  title,  they  should  be  called  after 
the  irreconcilables  of  our  day,  rather  than  after  the 
enthusiasts  of  the  revolution.  Shelley  had,  it  is  true,  a 
childish  faith  in  the  original  virtue  of  mankind,  and 
believed  that,  with  the  removal  of  the  restraints  of 
custom  and  law,  society  would  spontaneously  follow  an 
elysian  system  of  love  and  justice.  But  this  hallucina- 
tion sprang  entirely  from  his  temperament  and  youth. 
Shelley's  distaste  for  history  resulted  from  radical 
incapacity  to  comprehend  human  life  in  time  and  space. 
His  rebellion  against  tyrannies  in  theory  and  tyrannies 
in  fact  had  some  relation  to  actual  history,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  history  is  in  some  measure  what  he 
believed  it  to  be  altogether,  "a  record  of  crimes  and 
miseries."  He  was,  however,  most  true  to  his  mission 
in  appealing  to  charity  and  love  against  the  competitive 
principle  of  Crabbe's  hard  man  of  business  and  the  new 
political  economy,  "  Let  one  mind  one  and  all  are 
minded  then."  * 

♦  Though  the  purpose  of  this  study  excludes  notice  of  Keats,  it  would 
be  niggardly  not  to  indicate,  in  the  words  of  Professor  Saintsbury,  that 
the  author  of  Endymion^  "  as  no  one  of  his  own  contemporaries  did,  felt. 


298         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

Scott's  Poems  and  Naturalism,  1771-1832. — In 
both  poets  the  influence  of  the  new  naturalism  was 
strongly  operative.  Neither  was  a  partisan  of  its 
doctrinal  principle.  Byron,  indeed,  was  its  vigorous 
denouncer ;  but  in  their  work  it  attained  the  highest 
elevation  to  which  the  poetry  of  genius  could  raise  it. 
Scott,  however,  was  so  far  from  sharing  the  poetic 
temperament,  that  the  Revolution  kindled  in  him  no 
enthusiasm.  He  never  experienced  the  passion  for 
advance  which  touched  every  spontaneous  singer  of  that 
time.  Regardless  of  actual  circumstances,  he  was  born 
to  feel  no  change  congenial  unless  it  were  in  a  retro- 
grade direction.  But  this  love  and  reverence  for  the 
past  was  connected  in  a  peculiar  manner  with  that 
literalness  of  apprehension  and  unaffectedness  of  style 
which  made  him  the  most  popular  of  writers  and  the 
most  winning  exponent  of  naturalism.  Burger  received 
the  impulse  to  write  his  Lenore  from  Percy's  collection 
of  songs.  The  ballad  fell  into  the  hands  of  Scott,  and 
was  translated  by  him.  This  event  marks  Scott's 
determination  to  write  poetry,  not  in  the  style  of  Lenore^ 
but  after  the  inspiration  which  originally  had  stirred 
Burger,  in  the  manner  of  the  old  minstrels.  Scott  had 
been  an  eager  collector  of  Border  songs  from  his  boy- 
hood, and  his  enthusiasm  for  a  ruder,  heartier  state  of 
society  induced  him  to  translate  Goethe's  Goetz,  Hence, 
when  he  attempted  to  write  poetry  of  his  own,  it  was 
romance  of  the  days  of  yore.  The  success  of  his 
venture  was  unprecedented.  His  subjects  and  his  style 
yielded  to  the  public  those  aspects  of  naturalism  which 
it  could  best  appreciate.  Absolute  simplicity  of  treat- 
expressed,  and  handed  on  the  exact  change  wrought  in  English  poetry  by 
the  great  Romantic  movement."  "  Keats,  in  short,  is  the  father,  directly 
or  at  short  stages  of  descent,  of  every  English  poet  bom  within  the  nine- 
teenth century  who  has  not  been  a  mere  '  sport '  or  exception." 


i 


NATURALISM   IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE     299 

ment  and  diction,  unerring  description  of  events, 
constituted,  for  men  of  all  degrees  of  culture,  reading 
which  at  that  time  appeared  as  a  revelation  of  a  new 
capacity  for  enjoyment. 

Scott's  Novels  and  Naturalism. — For  the  method 
of  naturalism  to  achieve  this,  with  no  other  aid  than  an 
imagination  richly  stored  with  visions  of  the  feudal 
past,  and  scenes  from  romantic  nature,  was  a  signal 
triumph.  Still  greater  was  that  won  in  the  Waverley 
novels.  Though  these  romances  lacked  the  attrac- 
tions of  Scott's  lively  verse,  they  possessed  what  the 
poems  wanted,  and  what  was  of  far  more  importance. 
They  contained  a  large  portion  of  what  Wordsworth 
had  pointed  to  as  the  better  part  of  realistic  art,  and 
of  what  Wilkie  was  then  the  exponent  of  in  painting  ; — 
the  delineation  and  contemplation  of  humble  life.  The 
"  colouring  of  imagination  "  which  Scott  threw  over  his 
poor  people  differed  from  that  which  Wordsworth  shed 
over  his,  as  the  ideal  of  the  feudal  chief  differs  from 
that  of  the  industrious  yeoman.  The  author  of  the 
Waverley  novels,  as  Bagehot  pointed  out  in  a  well- 
known  essay,  succeeded  in  rendering  the  life  of  poverty 
and  toil  a  pleasing  subject  of  art,  by  approaching  it  as 
a  genial,  assiduous  landlord  would  approach  his  tenantry. 
Truth,  the  best  of  truth,  is  preserved,  but  the  delinea- 
tion of  people  in  narrow  and  sordid  circumstances  is 
never  so  minutely  executed  as  to  make  them  what  in 
real  life  they  must  generally  be,  in  spite  of  their  peculiar 
virtues  and  humour,  "  poor  talkers  and  poor  livers,  and 
in  all  ways  poor  people  to  read  about."  Scott  avoided 
the  extremes  of  Crabbe  and  the  arcadian  poets.  "  His 
poor  people  are  never  coarse  'and  vulgar ;  their  linea- 
ments have  the  rude  traits  which  a  life  of  conflict  will 
inevitably  leave  on  the  minds  and  manners  of  those 
who  lead  it ;  their  notions  have  the  narrowness  which 


300         HISTORY   OF   MODERN  EUROPE 

is  inseparable  from  a  contracted  experience ;  their 
knowledge  is  not  more  extended  than  their  restricted 
means  of  attaining  it  would  render  possible.  Almost 
alone  among  novelists,  Scott  has  given  a  thorough, 
minute,  lifelike  description  of  poor  persons,  which  is  at 
the  same  time  genial  and  pleasing." 

The  Modern  Novel. — The  attractive  aspect  under 
which  Scott's  patriarchal  feelings  presented  Scotch 
humble  life  was  only  surpassed  by  the  enchantment 
which  he  lent  to  his  native  land.  His  influence  in 
bringing  together  England  and  Scotland,  and  in  ex- 
tending the  growing  taste  for  natural  scenery,  is  matter 
of  common  recognition.*  His  aid  in  bringing  together 
different  classes  must  not  be  overlooked.  It  was 
because  his  realism  was  informed  by  an  artistic  refine- 
ment that  his  services  in  this  respect  must  be  reckoned 
so  considerable.  Men  are  no  more  induced  to  approach 
one  another  by  exhibiting  their  harshest,  baldest 
characteristics  than  by  merging  all  distinctions  in  an 
imaginary  nonentity.  They  draw  near  to  one  another 
only  in  the  belief  that  they  are  already  nearer  than  they 
really  are.  If  every  one  were  entirely  acquainted  with 
the  self  of  his  neighbour,  no  man  could  sufficiently 
isolate  himself.  Hence,  to  mediate  between  classes, 
the  modifications  of  sentiment  or  art  are  necessary. 
Scott  displayed  a  large  measure  of  both  resources  in 
his  prose  romances.  To  do  the  same  thing  for  indi- 
viduals is  the  main  social  purpose  of  the  modern  novel. 
It  is  accomplished  by  a  like  application  of  the  method 
of  naturalism.     Men  and  women,  who  by  instinct  and 

*  "  It  is  a  well  ascertained  fact,  that  from  the  date  of  the  publication 
of  the  Lady  of  the  Lake^  the  post-horse  duty  in  Scotland  rose  in  an 
extraordinary  degree,  and  indeed  it  continued  to  do  so  for  a  number  of  years, 
the  author's  succeeding  works  keeping  up  the  enthusiasm  for  our  scenery 
which  he  had  thus  originally  created."— Cadell :  apud  Lockhart. 


NATURALISM  IN  ENGLISH  LITERATURE     301 

cultivation  have  attained  to  more  than  commonly  true 
views  of  human  character  and  relations,  and  are  able  to 
embody  the  same  in  artistic  narrative,  present  to  their 
fellow  men  and  women  series  of  incidents  and  groups  of 
persons  which,  while  amusing,  instruct  the  individual 
reader  in  the  affinities  of  all  phases  of  life  and  the 
connections  of  all  types  of  character.  Herbert  Spencer 
bid  us  look  forward  to  a  time  when  social  intercourse 
will  lose  its  many  disfiguring  hindrances  in  a  fuller 
harmony  of  human  character  and  a  surer  perception  of 
one  another's  emotions  and  purposes.  If  this  hope  be 
well  founded — and  its  promise  seems  as  sincere  as  its 
realization  would  be  blissful — then  the  function  of  the 
modern  novel  is  both  weighty  and  extensive. 

The  Novel  of  Common  Life. — The  elucidation  of 
human  character  and  circumstances,  initiated  by  the 
novelists  of  the  eighteenth  century,  had  been  conducted 
too  much  in  the  interest  of  masculine  licence,  or  too 
much  in  deference  to  feminine  weakness,  to  be  very 
effective  as  a  means  of  general  culture.  Frances  Burney 
had  acquired  much  celebrity  by  portraying  a  variety 
of  what  Macaulay,  following  Ben  Jonson,  has  called 
**  humours,"  which  might  be  met  with  at  that  time  in 
society  of  fashion  ;  but  her  best  novels,  besides  being 
deficient  in  humanizing  power,  as  all  works  of  grotesque 
art  must  be,  were  almost  immediately  rendered  anti- 
quated by  the  social  changes  consequent  on  the  in- 
dustrial revolution.  It  was  not  till  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century  that  writers  of  her  sex  succeeded  in 
placing  the  novel  of  life  on  that  impersonal  basis,  which 
has  enabled  it  to  do  justice  to  every  feature  of  human 
existence.  This  they  achieved,  not  by  merely  imparting 
to  the  art  a  more  refined  tone,  though  by  thus  doing 
they  greatly  widened  its  sphere  of  usefulness  without 
detracting   from   its  vigour,  but  by   force  of  genuine 


302         HISTORY   OF   MODERN   EUROPE 

ability.  Maria  Edge  worth,  indeed,  was  able  to  offer 
to  English  readers  a  friendly  interpretation  of  their 
Irish  fellow  subjects,  which  in  its  success  was  not  far 
inferior  to  Scott's  corresponding  office.  Susan  Ferrier's 
satire  supplied  a  more  prosaic  view  of  Scotch  life  than 
was  compatible  with  the  vital  principle  of  the  Waverley 
novels.  But  in  purely  artistic  treatment  of  common 
life  both  these  writers  were  far  below  Jane  Austen. 
The  girl  who  wrote  Pride  and  Prejudice  was  not  a  great 
intellect,  nor  was  she  a  great  wit,  but  she  possessed  a 
delicate  perception  of  character,  and  a  talent  of  faithful 
delineation,  in  the  exercise  of  which  she  apprised  the 
world  that  individuals  had  still  a  great  deal  to  learn 
about  one  another,  and  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  to  gain 
in  acquiring  it.  Within  her  own  circle  of  middle-class 
life — the  same  life  that  was  the  source  of  energy  and 
stability  to  the  order  of  the  last  century — she  found  the 
material  for  uneventful  histories,  whose  recital  possessed 
all  the  charm  of  novelty  and  all  the  interest  of  personal 
sympathy.  In  her  hands  characters  the  most  tiresome 
made  good  their  claim  to  regard  as  sharers  of  our 
common  human  nature,  and  incidents  the  most  ordinary 
secured  attention  in  virtue  of  their  relation  to  general 
domestic  life.  From  her  example  men  learnt  how  in 
simple  dramatic  narrative  the  realism  of  life  might  be 
winningly  unfolded ;  how  without  the  drawbacks  of 
protracted  analysis  the  truth  of  themselves  might  be 
elucidated  to  their  common  gratification  and  enlighten- 
ment 


CHAPTER   XII 

RESULTANT   IDEAS  AND   TENDENCIES 

"  In  unserer  Gegenwart  bewegen  sich  wie  im  sechzehnten 
Jahrhundert  die  Volker  selbst  in  Massen,  und  in  alien  ihren 
Theilen  und  Schichten.  Und  dies  ist  die  eigenthiimliche  Grosse 
dieser  Zeit.  Der  hervorragende  Rang  der  grossen  Begabung  ist 
in  Abnahme,  aber  die  Zahl  der  mittleren  Begabungen  ist  in  desto 
grosserer  Zunahme  begrifFen  ;  nicht  die  Qualitat,  nicht  die  Hohe 
der  Bildung  der  Einzelnen  macht  den  Ruhm  dieser  Zeit  aus, 
sondern  die  Quantitat,  die  Weite,  die  Ausbreitung  der  Bildung 
unter  den  Vielen ;  es  ist  im  Einzelnen  nichts  Grosses  und  Erha- 
benes  geschehen,  aber  im  Ganzen  ist  dies  wahrhaft  eine  grosse 
und  erhabene  Wendung  in  der  Gestalt  des  offentlichen  Lebens, 
dass  die  Geschichte  dieser  Zeit  nicht  bios  Biographien  und  FUrsten- 
geschichten  zu  erzahlen  hat,  sondern  Volkergeschichte." — Ger- 

VINUS. 

The  National  Idea. — Of  the  different  groups  of  events 
reviewed  in  the  foregoing  chapters,  no  order  appears 
to  be  logically  superior  to  the  rest.  The  territorial 
dispensation,  that  issued  from  the  wars  and  political 
transactions,  is,  perhaps,  the  most  striking  change,  and 
it  proved  more  stable  than  the  manner  of  its  origin  and 
the  hopes  of  spectators  would  warrant  at  the  time.  Yet 
territorial  changes,  though  striking  enough  on  the  map 
or  at  the  douaneSy  are  in  themselves  external  to  the  life 
of  the  people  when  they  are  adjusted  by  diplomatic 
truck  and  barter  as  were  those  enforced  by  the  Congress 
of  Vienna.  In  Napoleon's  settlement  of  Germany 
they  assumed  greater  intrinsic  importance  because  they 

303 


304         HISTORY  OF   MODERN  EUROPE 

abridged  an  inevitable  process  of  concentration.  But 
those  that  sprang  from  the  conditions  attending  the 
Restoration  were  momentous  mainly  because  they 
eventually  brought  about  serious  conflicts.  These  con- 
flicts were  closely  connected  with  the  national  idea. 
This  idea,  sublime  in  its  aim,  appealing  in  its  egoism, 
was  the  answer  of  the  nineteenth  century  to  the  cosmo- 
politanism of  the  eighteenth  century.  That  men  are 
born  equal  may,  or  may  not,  be  true  in  so  far  as  they 
are  born  as  individuals ;  but  as  members  of  national 
bodies  they  difler  as  widely  as  the  Celt  diff*ers  from  the 
Teuton,  as  the  Latin  differs  from  the  Slav.  And  no 
one  can  say  that  these  difl'erences  amount  to  more  and 
less,  to  better  and  worse.  But  difl'erences  they  are,  and 
differences  they  will  remain  for  at  least  the  term  of  our 
civilization.  For  tens  of  thousands  of  years  the  mass 
of  mankind  sought  only  to  be  allowed  to  live  and  to 
reproduce.  The  time  was  now  come  when  in  every 
European  branch  of  the  race  men  demanded  to  be  able 
to  live  their  own  life,  in  their  own  way,  within  the  wide 
limits  of  national  association.  This  demand  led  to  a 
general  development  of  men's  activities  as  members  of 
states,  and  more  particularly  to  the  growth  of  taxation, 
national  debts,  and  citizen  armies.  But  cost  in  this 
case  was  of  small  account.  To  be  a  people  was  of  no 
avail  unless  the  body  felt  itself  to  be  a  nation.  To  be 
a  nation  without  a  fisc,  a  debt,  or  an  army  was  an 
impossibility  which  the  monarchies  had  demonstrated, 
and  which  the  nineteenth  century  continued  to  enforce. 
Such  incidents  were  cheerfully  submitted  to  as  long  as 
national  aspirations  could  thereby  be  fulfilled. 

Varied  Circumstances  attending  the  National 
Idea. — The  passion  of  nationality  was  indeed  one  of 
the  most  influential  agents  in  the  history  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.     Its  growth  had  in  many  places  been 


RESULTANT   IDEAS  AND   TENDENCIES    805 

provided  for  by  the  monarchs,  who  had  prepared  the 
peoples  for  an  expansion  of  their  provincial  feelings 
into  affection  for  larger  unities  by  accustoming  them 
to  regard  as  paramount  the  interests  of  dynasties.  But 
its  mature  form  as  a  strong  spring  of  concerted  action 
for  ideal  objects  among  large  masses  of  men  was,  in  a 
great  part  of  Europe,  an  outcome  of  the  revolutionary 
epoch.  The  central  conceptions,  which  gave  it  power 
and  direction,  were  linguistic,  geographical,  traditional, 
or  racial,  and,  in  one  case  at  least,  religious.  The 
circumstances  from  which  it  received  impulse  and 
sustenance  were  often  the  hopes  of  independence,  the 
desire  of  self-government,  and  the  suggestions  put 
forth  by  actual  changes,  which  the  revolutionary  pro- 
paganda and  innovations  introduced.  The  passion, 
however,  was  very  variously  affected  by  attendant 
circumstances.  In  Russia,  at  least,  the  sense  of 
national  unity,  already  existing  in  a  somewhat  low 
form,  was  greatly  heightened  by  resistance  against  the 
Revolution.  Alexander's  subjects  felt  the  more  Russian 
in  withstanding  his  civilizing  projects,  and  his  whole 
empire  experienced  a  thrill  of  oneness  and  assurance 
in  the  act  of  repelling  invasion  by  the  revolutionary 
dictator.  In  Spain  the  battle  for  independence  knit 
the  people  more  closely  together.  But  here  the  spirit 
of  innovation  of  itself  effected  an  entry,  and  in  the 
future,  aided  by  the  folly  of  the  restored  king,  it  con- 
verted the  feeling  of  national  unity  into  a  desire  for 
a  national  government.  In  Germany  the  War  of 
Liberation  did  much  to  awaken  the  national  sense,  but 
its  influence  was  surpassed  by  the  political  changes 
imposed  by  Bonaparte,  by  the  enterprising  conduct  of 
Prussia,  and  the  spiritual  regeneration  which  the  nation 
underwent  of  its  own  accord.  Italy  was  first  made  to 
feel  itself  a  nation  by  the   discipline  of  the   French 

X 


306         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

Emperor,  notwithstanding  the  great  differences  obtain- 
ing among  its  people.  If  Alfieri  had  written  a  little 
later  he  would  have  been  able  to  supersede  Metastasio's 
conventionalism  by  a  truly  national  background,  instead 
of  by  realistic  vehemence  in  the  mouths  of  patriots 
without  a  country.  The  national  spirit  of  Greece, 
though  it  was  based  on  ecclesiastical  relations  and  was 
strengthened  by  the  sight  of  the  Revolution,  was 
primarily  set  in  motion  by  prosperity,  which  permitted 
a  return  to  the  language  and  history  of  ancient  Hellas. 
That  of  the  Servians,  never  entirely  lost,  rested  on 
remembrance  of  autonomy  in  days  long  gone  by,  and 
was  fortified  by  chequered  conflict  with  the  Turks. 

Real  Ground  of  the  National  Idea. — To  elucidate, 
in  fact,  the  full  circumstances  and  meaning  of  this 
historical  phenomenon  would  require  a  lengthy  investiga- 
tion. It  is  clear,  however,  on  the  face  of  the  matter 
that  the  ostensible  grounds  of  the  sentiment  would 
seem  to  positive  minds  to  be  rarely  solid,  and  frequently 
fanciful.  Musty  tradition,  defective  ethnology,  arbitrary 
conceptions  of  geographical  fitness,  arguments  from 
philological  resemblances,  appeals  to  religious  solidarity, 
have  been  brought  forward  in  behalf  of  violent  pro- 
ceedings, till  the  idea  of  nationality  has  been  made  to 
appear  an  erratic  passion  which  has  already  caused 
much  suffering  and  confusion,  and  will  probably 
occasion  yet  more.  But,  in  truth,  the  formal  pleas  have 
never  been  the  real  grounds  of  nationalizing  action. 
They  have  only  provided  common  tenets  of  faith  around 
which  might  gather  men  who  were  moved  by  their 
supposed  interests  and  social  aspirations  to  realize 
certain  political  ideals.  The  interests  have  not  always 
turned  out  to  be  substantial  gains ;  the  aspirations  have 
frequently  entailed  great  sacrifices  and  disappointments. 
Englishmen,  however,  should  be  slow  to  grudge  other 


RESULTANT  IDEAS  AND  TENDENCIES    607 

peoples  the  luxury  of  patriotic  sentiments,  or  to  over- 
look the  fact  that  the  routine  of  life  may  be  more 
alleviated  by  sharing  in  the  feelings  and  fortunes  of 
a  national  state  than  burdened  by  the  duties  and 
encumbrances  which  such  participation  involves. 

Survival  of  the  Monarchical  Idea. — Though  desire 
for  national  independence  and  unity  was  often  accom- 
panied by  a  desire  for  self-government,  the  monarchical 
idea  still  retained  much  power  over  European  peoples 
after  the  conclusion  of  the  wars.  The  traditions  of 
monarchy  as  a  reformer  survived  the  French  Revolution 
in  spite  of  Burns'  toast  to  the  last  verse  of  the  last 
chapter  of  the  last  book  of  Kings.  They  had  been  cast 
into  abeyance  for  a  time  when  the  storm  was  gathering 
fury ;  but  when  the  new  movement  had  disclosed  its 
terrible  aspects,  and  the  despotism  of  the  empire  had, 
on  the  one  hand,  again  made  absolutism  respected,  and 
on  the  other  hand  had  wearied  men  with  sacrifices  in 
behalf  of  novelties,  the  old  confidence  in  monarchs 
partly  returned  to  the  mass  of  the  people.  The  liberal 
professions  of  Alexander,  the  reforms  under  the  Prussian 
monarchy,  the  constitutional  promises  of  the  sovereigns 
at  the  end  of  the  wars,  the  increased  power  and  activity 
of  the  smaller  German  rulers,  helped  to  confirm  this 
faith.  The  discipline  of  the  new  military  system  helped 
to  keep  the  sentiment  alive ;  the  enormous  territorial 
armies  helped  to  repress  all  overt  acts  of  rebellion. 
However  patriots  and  agitators  might  hate  the  dynas- 
ties, the  monarchs  had  from  the  first  a  large  fund  of  con- 
fidence and  forbearance  to  draw  upon  in  their  struggle 
for  self-preservation  among  the  forces  of  a  new  and 
democratic  order.  Though  publicists  long  regarded 
parliamentary  government  as  a  political  panacea,  mon- 
archy retained  its  hold  on  European  affairs  till  the 
experiment    of    representative    assemblies    had    been 


308         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

made.  Since  then  parliamentary  institutions  have 
betrayed  shortcomings  of  their  own.  It  is  yet  doubtful 
whether,  under  the  conditions  of  modern  Europe,  states 
can  dispense  with  a  strong  monarchical  element  in 
government. 

The  Constitutional  Idea. — The  co-existence  of  the 
monarchical  idea  with  a  desire  for  representative  in- 
stitutions was  indicative  of  a  mode  of  viewing  political 
reform  very  different  from  the  crude  absolutism  or 
republicanism  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  longing 
for  self-government  was  greatly  increased  and  diffused 
by  the  propaganda  of  the  Revolution,  and  the  social 
conditions  introduced  by  the  new  industrial  system.  But 
events  at  the  same  time  demonstrated  that  good  demo- 
cratic institutions  are  rather  the  fruit  of  slow  growth 
than  the  product  of  deliberate  manufacture.  Still,  it 
was  plain  that  no  considerable  step  towards  self- 
government  could  be  made  in  the  greater  part  of 
Europe  except  by  consciously  elaborated  innovations. 
The  difficulty  thus  raised  was  met  in  great  measure  by 
the  traditional  faith  in  monarchy,  and  in  a  smaller  degree 
by  regarding  the  English  regime  with  more  appreciation 
than  the  authority  of  Montesquieu  had  been  able  to 
enjoin  on  the  generation  which  derived  its  ideas  from 
Voltaire,  Rousseau,  and  the  Economists.  By  incor- 
porating the  representative  element  of  democracy  into 
the  existing  monarchical  system,  it  seemed  that  the 
best  advantages  of  self-government  might  be  obtained 
without  hazarding  the  dangers  of  paper  polities  and 
ochlocratic  transitions.  Hence,  within  the  period 
covered  by  this  volume,  the  best  instructed  minds  had 
so  completely  reversed  the  opinions  of  their  prede- 
cessors that  the  ideal  constitution,  which  became  the 
object  of  men's  hopes  after  1815,  was  understood  in  the 
English  sense  of  the  word.     The  realization  of  the  ideal 


RESULTANT   IDEAS  AND  TENDENCIES    309 

polity  was  conceived  to  be  the  establishment  of  a 
parliamentary  government  under  a  limited  monarchy, 
such  as  time  had  successfully  developed  in  Great 
Britain.  The  solution  was  so  evidently  the  logical 
compromise  to  which  recent  events  led,  that  at  the 
Restoration  it  received  abundant  recognition  from  the 
professions  of  the  victorious  sovereigns. 

The  Constitutional  Idea  and  the  Bourgeoisie. — 
But  the  constitutional  idea  rested  on  a  broader  basis 
than  the  deductions  of  trusted  publicists.  On  its 
democratic  side,  it  received  powerful  support  from  the 
doctrines  of  Bentham  and  his  disciples.  On  its 
monarchical  side,  it  was  upheld  by  a  reactionary  school 
on  the  Continent,  and  by  a  literary  movement  in 
Germany  and  France.  In  its  revolutionary  tendency 
it  was  confirmed  by  events  in  Spain,  Italy,  and  France, 
till  it  issued  in  independent  action  in  1848.  The  main 
source  of  its  power,  however,  resided  in  the  new 
economical  organization  of  European  society.  The 
almost  total  abolition  of  feudal  usages,  the  extensive 
adoption  of  the  Code,  the  careers  opened  to  individual 
merit,  the  exertions  called  forth  by  the  continental 
system,  had  all  aided  the  development  of  the  middle 
class  which  was  already  thrusting  itself  into  prominence 
under  the  old  regime.  When  the  wars  ceased,  the 
Continent  passed  under  the  dominion  of  the  industrial 
revolution.  Now,  this  event  had  no  more  been  antici- 
pated by  the  material  progress  of  the  eighteenth 
century  than  the  political  revolution  had  been  fore- 
stalled by  the  reforming  statesmen  and  monarchs.  The 
rapidly  increasing  importance  of  the  middle  classes,  as 
they  wielded  more  efficiently  capital  and  machinery, 
was  at  least  as  much  the  result  of  economical  changes 
as  it  was  of  political  changes.  If  one  revolution 
emancipated    the    continental    bourgeois    classes,  the 


310         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

other  conferred  on  them  supremacy.  These  classes, 
placed  between  the  crowns  and  landed  aristocracy  on 
the  one  hand  and  the  proletariat  on  the  other,  felt  that 
their  strength  would  be  best  preserved  if  a  balance 
were  maintained  between  the  monarchical  and  demo- 
cratic elements  in  government.  This  feeling  was  the 
more  strong  because  on  the  Continent  the  bourgeois 
classes  had  experienced  the  disadvantage  of  having  the 
industrial  revolution  imposed  on  them  from  without. 
In  England  the  middle  class  was  not  only  sprung  from 
a  sturdy  stock,  accustomed  to  take  a  part  in  the  busi- 
ness and  strifes  of  the  community,  but  by  carrying 
through  the  industrial  revolution  it  developed  to  the 
utmost  those  virtues  which  are  most  necessary  to  the 
dominant  members  of  an  industrial  society.  In 
the  greater  part  of  the  rest  of  Europe,  on  the  contrary, 
the  bourgeoisie  had  suffered  a  long  tutelage.  When  it 
was  raised  by  the  new  industrial  system  to  a  command- 
ing position,  it  had  gained  none  of  the  benefits  to  be 
derived  from  the  exertions  of  accomplishing  a  great 
work.  Hence  it  retained  much  of  its  old  narrowness 
of  view  and  timidity  of  heart.  It  felt  enough  confidence 
to  wish  to  share  government  with  the  sovereigns,  but 
it  lacked  the  spirit  to  play  a  heroic  rdle.  And  all  the 
time  its  want  of  moral  superiority  caused  it  to  fear  the 
rivalry  of  the  proletariat.  Thus  the  new  masters  of 
society  were  impelled,  both  by  instinctive  regard  for 
their  interests  and  by  the  manifest  tendency  of  events, 
to  support  the  constitutional  idea. 

Evils  of  the  Industrial  Order. — And,  in  truth,  the 
lords  of  the  industrial  order  were  confronted  by  serious 
difficulties  from  the  outset.  They,  the  capitalists,  the 
organizers  of  labour,  were  the  leaders  of  the  movement ; 
and  in  company  with  them  flourished  financiers  and 
professional     men.       In     numbers,    intelligence,     and 


RESULTANT   IDEAS   AND  TENDENCIES    311 

affluence,  this  class  far  surpassed  its  prototype  under 
the  old  regime.  But  the  labourers,  whom  they 
organized  and  led,  were  remarkable  only  for  numerous- 
ness.  Industrial  progress  induced  a  large  normal 
addition  to  the  numbers  of  wage-earners  without  at 
first  tending  to  raise  greatly  the  standard  of  education 
and  comfort.  Industrial  fluctuations,  on  the  other  hand, 
maintained  a  redundant  population  to  keep  up  a  high 
level  of  misery,  and  the  presence  of  needy  hands  helped 
to  encourage  speculative  trading.  Health  and  morals 
at  the  same  time  deteriorated  among  the  masses, 
crowded  together  in  towns,  and  reared  for  the  factory, 
without  regard  for  physical  or  ethical  cultivation.  To 
make  these  circumstances  more  bitter,  the  new  political 
economy  had  exhibited  the  conflict  of  interests  involved 
in  the  distribution  of  wealth.  The  same  agent  had 
rendered  the  system  the  more  sinister-looking  by  un- 
veiling the  causes  which  limited  population  to  the  means 
of  bare  subsistence.  If  economic  science  has  taught 
labourers  to  regard  industrial  crises  as  the  results  of 
laws,  which  are  not  to  be  withstood  by  impatient  riot- 
ing, it  has  also  convinced  them  that  in  the  modern 
social  organization  inhere  elements  of  chronic  distress. 
As  the  economic  revolution  proceeded  to  transform 
European  life,  men  of  science  began  to  reiterate  that 
the  multitude  could  never  permanently  improve  its 
condition  unless  it  put  an  arbitrary  limitation  to  its 
numbers.  None  the  less,  seasons  of  commercial  activity 
kept  enticing  into  the  world  beings  whose  very  rearing 
the  following  seasons  of  depression  made  an  ordeal  of 
woe.  The  monitions  of  Malthus  were  timely  instructors 
of  legislators  and  theorists,  but  they  failed  to  arrest  the 
evils  of  a  teeming  population,  or  to  enable  labour  to 
deal  on  advantageous  terms  with  capital.  Hence  grew 
up  the  discontents  of  the  proletariat.     In  the  preceding 


312         HISTORY   OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

century  their  masters  had  striven  to  find  a  short  cut  to 
freedom  by  inventing  the  rights  of  men ;  in  the  nine- 
teenth the  wage-earners  sought  to  better  their  condition 
by  narrowing  down  the  principle  to  the  rights  of  labour. 
Rule  of  the  Middle  Classes. — And  it  must  be 
confessed  that  if  employers  and  organizers  of  labour 
were  ready  to  withstand  the  pretensions  of  aristocracies 
and  landed  proprietors,  they  travelled  but  slowly  beyond 
the  region  of  their  own  immediate  interests.  Towards 
the  employed  they  were  too  often  harsh,  grasping,  and 
neglectful ;  and  their  representation  of  the  industrial 
population  retained  a  one-sided  character  which  was 
defined  by  over- weening  jealousy  for  the  rights  of 
capital.  Yet  the  middle  classes  were  undoubtedly  the 
proper  mediators  between  the  old  and  democratic 
orders.  By  their  exertions  many  wholesome  reforms, 
and  a  great  development  of  society's  resources,  prepared 
a  better  day  for  the  labouring  classes,  notwithstanding 
a  temporary  subjection  to  the  rule  of  capital.  The 
strength  and  wisdom  of  the  middle  classes  lay  in  their 
close  relation  to  reality.  While  the  nobility  was  too 
far  removed  from  the  real  business  of  life  to  understand 
or  approve  the  conditions  of  progress  ;  and  the  labour- 
ing population  was  too  absorbed  in  struggles  for 
existence  to  obtain  a  comprehensive  view  of  society's 
situation ;  the  middle  classes  were  engaged  closely 
enough  with  the  strife  to  live  to  perceive  the  first  needs 
of  the  community,  and  were  sufficiently  at  leisure  to 
regard  with  calmness  and  intelligence  the  means  of 
their  attainment.  Hence  they  promoted  the  evolution 
of  a  social  order  more  free  from  anomalies,  in  other 
words,  more  in  harmony  with  reality  than  any  former 
instance  of  complex  civilization.  True,  the  rank  and 
file  often  strove,  and  strove  successfully,  to  thwart  the 
plans  of  their  more  enlightened   leaders.      Certainly, 


RESULTANT  IDEAS  AND  TENDENCIES    313 

too,  the  middle  class  never  has  been,  and  probably 
never  will  be,  without  need  of  homilies  on  sweetness 
and  light,  for  the  simple  reason  that  it  embodies  the 
most  powerful  human  forces  of  a  world  which  assuredly 
is  not  very  good,  as  it  is  not  intolerably  bad.  As  long 
as  it  flourishes  it  will  need  to  be  warned  against  being 
vulgarized,  just  as  the  aristocracy  will  need  to  be 
cautioned  against  being  materialized,  and  the  proletariat 
will  have  to  be  defended  against  being  brutalized,  as  we 
were  often  told  by  a  stylist  of  the  last  generation.  Still, 
it  must  be  allowed  that  when  the  state  of  society  brings 
the  body  in  closest  connection  with  the  conditions  of 
progress — and  that  is  precisely  what  was  done  by  the 
industrial  revolution — then,  in  spite  of  its  unlovely 
errors  and  shortcomings,  it  will  achieve,  on  the  whole, 
what  is  best  for  the  community  in  the  season  of  its 
ascendency. 

Elements  of  Improvement. — But  while  difficulties 
were  inseparable  from  the  new  industrial  order,  they 
were  constantly  prevented  from  culminating  into  an 
intolerable  crisis  by  the  resources  of  the  system  itself. 
Increase  of  food  supplies  was  continually  being  pro- 
cured by  extending  agricultural  improvements  and  the 
margin  of  cultivation  over  the  whole  world.  More 
cheap  and  speedy  means  of  transport  and  communica- 
tion mitigated  the  effects  of  local  dearth,  and  opened 
for  the  redundant  population  a  way  of  escape  to  new 
lands.  The  production  of  manufactured  necessities  and 
comforts  was  indefinitely  increased  by  the  progress  of 
invention  and  organization.  The  process  of  exchange, 
and  division  of  labour,  continued  to  be  more  and  more 
facilitated  by  mechanical  appliances  and  commercial 
enterprise.  A  better  appreciation  of  the  nature  of 
economic  forces  enabled  governments  to  be  generally 
less  prejudicial,   and  sometimes  even   helpful,  to  the 


314         HISTORY   OF  MODERN   EUROPE 

course  of  industry.  The  discoveries  of  science  co- 
operated with  the  ingenuity  of  inventors  to  further 
production,  till  the  occasional  services  rendered  by 
exact  knowledge  to  labour  grew  into  a  close  and  vital 
connection. 

Diffusion  of  Intelligence  and  Information. — The 
progress  of  scientific  discovery  itself  was  furthered  in  an 
ever-increasing  degree  both  by  the  growing  numbers  of 
earnest  men  who  could  afford  to  engage  in  research,  and 
by  the  continual  improvement  in  instruments  of  investi- 
gation and  in  the  means  of  intercourse  between  inquirers 
throughout  civilized  society.  Among  the  mass  of  the 
community  the  most  instructive  of  the  information  and 
lessons  thus  obtained  were  diffused  by  a  superior  class 
of  periodical  literature,  initiated  in  England  by  the 
Edinburgh  and  Quarterly  Reviews.  These  publications 
awoke  in  the  reading  public  an  intelligent  interest  in 
the  advance  of  knowledge  and  enlightenment,  such  as 
had  been  known  only  in  the  upper  circles  of  France 
immediately  before  the  Revolution,  and  of  England 
when  continental  travel  had  been  rendered  impracti- 
cable by  war.  At  the  same  time,  speculative  thought 
discussed  the  eternal  problems  ever  more  boldly  and 
circumspectly.  Philosophers  promoted  intellectual 
freedom  with  a  persistence  which  was  foreign  alike  to 
the  arrogance  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  the  despair- 
ing dogmatism  of  the  reaction.  The  literature  of 
imagination  threw  its  influence  on  the  side  of  mental 
liberty,  and  presented  to  the  choice  of  men  varying  but 
serious  criticisms  of  life.  Meantime  primary  education 
kept  steadily  raising  the  standard  of  average  intelli- 
gence,* and  the  daily  press  and  popular  publications, 

♦  In  1797,  Dr.  Andrew  Bell,  a  clergyman,  whom  want  of  assistants 
had  compelled  to  make  the  trial,  published  a  pamphlet  describing  the 
advantages  of  using  pupil  teachers  in  schools.     In  the  following  year 


RESULTANT  IDEAS   AND  TENDENCIES    315 

growing  continually  cheaper  and  more  efficient,  gradually 
imparted  to  every  class  more  ample  knowledge  of  facts, 
wider  conceptions  of  social  questions,  and  a  keener 
interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  community.  More  influ- 
ential still,  increased  intercourse  between  men  steadily 
overcame  the  jealousy  of  ignorance,  and  softened  the 
asperities  of  conflicting  interests. 

Religion  for  Religion's  Sake. — One  softening  in- 
fluence there  was  which  our  period  prepared  for  but 
hardly  felt.  This  was  a  feeling  which  was  to  be 
peculiarly  characteristic  of  modern  Europe,  though  it 
seems  to  belong  to  the  mystic  life  of  Asia  rather  than 
to  our  own  bustling  material  age.  Religion  for  religion's 
sake  drew  many  a  monk  and  many  a  nun  into  seclusion 
in  mediaeval  times.  But  it  had  never  been  the  soul  of  any 
popular  form  of  religion.  It  is,  of  course,  common  to 
condemn  the  eighteenth  century  as  irreligious.  But  the 
truth  is  that  in  England  and  the  rest  of  Europe  men 
were  then  spiritually  recuperating  after  episodes  as 
exhausting  as  they  were  full  of  disillusion.  Men  had 
grown  tired  of  religion  when  it  only  brought  a  sword. 
Men  were  ceasing  to  revere  creeds  which  bade  them 
suffer  here  lest  they  might  suffer  worse  hereafter.  They 
began  to  think  of  sin  as  a  factor  in  an  incomprehensible 
contract,  and  many  concluded  that  it  did  not  exist.  They 
had  not  yet  begun  to  regard  sin  as  a  human  state  which 
the  human  soul  must  ever  strive  to  subdue  and  absorb 
in  a  more  generous  order  of  human  existence.     They 

Joseph  Lancaster,  a  philanthropical  Nonconformist,  opened  a  school  closely 
following  Bell's  monitorial  system  of  mutual  instruction.  Thus  a  great 
impulse  was  given  to  the  cause  of  elementary  education  in  England.  The 
British  and  Foreign  School  Society  was  founded  by  Dissenters  in  1807, 
and  the  National  Society  by  Churchmen  in  1809.  But,  in  truth,  the 
success  of  the  Bell-Lancaster  method  was  world-wide.  In  1820  there  were 
5600  schools  thus  organized  in  Europe,  not  including  Denmark,  where  the 
system  was  officially  adopted ;  and  in  1829  Europe  possessed  io,6cx) 
schools;  Asia,  1600;  Africa,  130;  America,  1000 j  and  Australia  100. 


316         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

had  not  begun  to  suspect  that  the  more  gracious  aids 
to  achieve  this  sort  of  salvation  would  constitute  the 
Christology  of  the  future.  The  perplexing  and 
discouraging  interpretation  of  the  Atonement,  which 
Catholics  and  Protestants  alike  had  derived  from  Paul 
and  Augustine,  but  which  never  dominated  nor  rent 
with  schisms  the  Eastern  Church,*  had  blunted  the 
perceptions  of  the  faithful,  and  had  excited  the  scorn 
of  the  rebellious.  But  from  Herrnhut  and  from  Oxford 
there  emanated  influences  which  found  a  fertile  medium 
in  the  life  of  the  eighteenth  century.  We  have  but  to 
examine  the  work  of  Schleiermacher,  and  to  follow  the 
careers  of  Whitefield  and  the  Wesleys,  to  be  convinced 
that  it  was  a  great  spiritual  void  which  the  so-called 
irreligion  of  the  century  had  been  concealing  and 
extending. 

John  Wesley,  1703-91 ;  Schleiermacher,  1768- 
1834. — The  influence  of  the  brethren  of  Herrnhut  on 
English  religious  life  was  no  new  thing  when  John 
Wesley  became  "converted,"  on  May  24,  1738,  through 
the  influence  of  Peter  Bohler.  And  the  Unitas  Fratrum 
was,  eleven  years  later,  acknowledged  in  an  Act  of 
Parliament    to   be   "an   ancient    Protestant   Episcopal 

*  In  this  connection  it  is  well  to  remember  that  nearly  a  third  part  of 
Christendom  belongs  to  the  Eastern  Church,  and  that,  to  quote  Dean 
Stanley,  * '  the  subtleties  of  the  Roman  law  as  applied  to  the  relations  of 
God  and  man,  which  appear  faintly  in  Augustine,  more  distinctly  in 
Aquinas,  more  decisively  still  in  Calvin  and  Luther,  and,  though  from  a 
somewhat  larger  point  of  view,  in  Grotius,  are  almost  unknown  to  the 
East.  '  Forensic  justification,'  'merit,'  'demerit,'  'satisfaction,'  'imputed 
righteousness,'  '  decrees,'  represent  ideas  which  in  the  Eastern  theology 
have  no  predominent  influence,  hardly  any  words  to  represent  them. 
The  few  exceptions  that  occur  may  be  traced  directly  to  accidental  gusts 
of  Western  influence.  Hence  arises  the  apparent  contradiction  that, 
whenever  the  Eastern  theologians  enter  on  topics  which  touch  not  the 
abstract  questions  of  the  Divine  essence,  but  the  human  questions  of  grace 
and  predestination,  there  is  a  more  directly  moral  and  practical  tone  than 
often  in  corresponding  treatises  of  the  Protestant  West." 


RESULTANT   IDEAS   AND  TENDENCIES    317 

Church,  which  had  been  countenanced  and  reh'eved  by 
the  kings  of  England,  his  Majesty's  predecessors."  Nor 
was  the  influence  of  the  Moravians  less  effective  on 
their  pupil  Schleiermacher,  who,  long  after  he  had  left 
the  community,  testified  to  their  supreme  ability  to 
express  and  awaken  the  spirit  of  true  Christian  piety. 
Through  both  men  there  was  convincingly  set  forth  the 
intuition,  first  appealed  to  by  Christ,  and  latterly  pre- 
served by  the  Moravians — the  intuition  that  the  "  king- 
dom of  God  cometh  not  by  outward  show ; "  "  for,  lo, 
the  kingdom  of  God  is  within  you."  Wesley  was  fortu- 
nate in  that  he  laboured  at  a  time  when  he  could  feel 
assured  that  the  effect  of  criticism  of  external  evidences 
would  be  that  "in  a  century  or  two  the  people  of 
England  will  be  fairly  divided  into  real  Deists  and  real 
Christians."  Schleiermacher  preached  at  a  time  when 
already  Semler  had  inaugurated  the  critical  treatment 
of  the  Bible  which  produced  in  its  time  the  Tubingen 
School  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  hand  the 
commonplaces  of  the  biblical  scholarship  of  to-day. 
And  the  conditions  of  his  work  were  so  favourable  that 
when  he  republished  in  1821  the  addresses  on  religion, 
which  he  had  put  forth  in  1799  especially  for  the  edu- 
cated among  its  despisers — "  unter  ihren  Verachtern  " — 
he  had  to  confess  that  the  persons  for  whom  the  ad- 
dresses were  originally  intended  seemed  to  exist  no 
longer.  Rather,  he  added,  would  one,  starting  from  his 
first  standpoint,  now  have  to  issue  addresses  against 
bigotry  and  superstition.* 

♦  The  leading  ideas  of  the  Reden  may  be  thus  summarized  :  **  The 
value  of  religion  results  from  what  it  is  in  itself,  and  not  from  what  it 
subserves.  It  is  chiefly  from  seeing  the  purposes  for  which  it  is  brought 
forward  that  cultivated  men  have  turned  themselves  away  from  it." 
*'  Religion  has  to  be  sought  neither  in  books  nor  in  traditions,  but  in  the 
human  heart."  "It  is  necessary  that  every  one  should  make  his  own 
religion  for  himself."— Lichtenberger. 

Compare    these    principles  with   the    definition  of   Spinoza,   whom 


318         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

The  Reinstatement  of  the  Religious  Conscious- 
ness.— Thus,  though  at  first  sight  the  doctrinal  teach- 
ings of  Wesley  and  Sehleiermacher  were  as  the  poles 
apart ;  though  the  first  could  reproach  with  ill-j  udged 
heat  his  first  master,  William  Law,  for  having  rarely 
named  the  name  of  Christ,  "  never  so  as  to  ground  any- 
thing upon  faith  in  his  blood,"  and  the  second  could 
chide  his  wife  for  speaking  constantly  of  the  Saviour 
and  placing  God  quite  in  the  background ;  yet  the  two 
men  represent  in  European  history  that  great  reinstate- 
ment of  the  religious  consciousness  which  the  enlighten- 
ment had  despised  and  the  Revolution  had  outraged. 
This  consciousness,  the  existence  of  which  the  eigh- 
teenth-century movement  hardly  suspected,  was  all  the 
time  the  treasured  possession  of  Catholics,  Protestants, 
and  Methodists  alike.  It  was  this  spiritual  force  which 
the  nineteenth  century  was  able  to  call  to  its  aid,  and 
which  makes  the  old  controversies  seem  to  us  so  lifeless 
and  vain.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that,  as  in  other 
spheres,  the  eighteenth  century  preserved,  or  supplied 
by  struggle  and  privation,  the  very  religious  elements 
which  the  next  century  appropriated  to  its  own  use  and 
enrichment. 

The  Historical  Method,  Proper  to  Earlier 
Periods,  Inadequate. — Hence  the  historian  of  the 
nineteenth  century  has  to  take  into  consideration  the 
co-existence  of  various  important  collateral  influences, 
when  he  seeks  to  follow  the  prevailing  force  which  pro- 
duced the  phenomena  he  endeavours  to  explain.  These 
several  influences  wax  and  wane,  but  none  the  less  one 
great  principle  continues  dominant,  the  principle  of 
comfort  and  opportunity  for  all.    And  so  it  comes  about 

Schleiermaclier  revered  so  well :  "  Porro  quicquid  cupimus  et  agimus,  cuius 
causa  sumus,  quatenus  Dei  habemus  ideam,  sive  quatenus  Deum  cognosci- 
mus,  ad  religionem  refero.  Cupiditatem  autem  bene  faciendi,  quae  ex  eo 
ingeneratur,  quod  ex  rationis  ductu  vivimus,  pietatem  voco. " 


RESULTANT  IDEAS   AND  TENDENCIES     319 

that  in  dealing  with  a  period  of  such  complex  develop- 
ment, a  notable  advance  must  be  made  on  the  customary- 
method  of  approaching  historical  questions.  Before  our 
own  age  is  reached  it  is  convenient,  if  not  very  philo- 
sophical, to  place  the  history  of  war  and  legislation  in 
the  foreground,  and  to  make  but  occasional  references 
to  facts  of  other  orders.  It  is  always  necessary  to  make 
periodical  reviews  of  the  course  of  religious,  literary, 
and  artistic  culture,  and  of  changes  in  manners  and 
customs.  It  is  only  at  uncertain  intervals  that  attention 
has  to  be  directed  to  such  facts  as  the  invention  of  the 
compass,  of  gunpowder,  of  paper  and  printing ;  to  such 
occurrences  as  a  plague,  a  succession  of  bad  harvests, 
debasement  of  the  currency,  or  the  ravages  of  war ;  to 
the  effects  of  geographical  discovery,  and  the  slow  shift- 
ing of  national  occupations  and  industrial  methods  ;  to 
variations  in  the  state  of  popular  education,  or  to  the 
progress  of  scientific  knowledge ;  to  advances  in  specu- 
lative opinion  which  are  not  merged  in  the  fortunes  of 
religious  sects,  and  to  practical  theories  which  are  not 
the  formulae  of  dominant  interests. 

A  Change  of  Method  required  by  the  Modern 
Period. — But  as  our  own  time  is  approached,  the 
picturesque  groupings  of  manners,  thoughts,  and  feel- 
ings different  from  our  own  fade  away.  In  their  place 
succeeds  a  prosaic  plexus  of  events  which  will  yield  its 
meaning  only  to  comprehensive  treatment.  The  history 
of  politics  loses  its  supreme  importance  as  the  funda- 
mental forces  of  social  life  gain  freedom  from  extran- 
eous bonds.  Political  association,  with  its  vicissitudes, 
becomes  but  one  aspect  of  a  many-sided  organization 
by  which  men  produce  for  themselves  the  necessaries, 
comforts,  and  embellishments  of  life.  When  tradition 
drops  its  prescriptive  right,  and  either  disappears  or 
stablishes  itself  on  expediency,  the  history  of  peoples 


320         HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

embraces  all  other  kinds  of  history,  and  is  itself  the 
outcome  of  men's  actual  efforts  to  live  and  enjoy  under 
certain  material  and  intellectual  conditions.  As  this 
point  is  approached,  therefore,  the  true  basis  of  historical 
study  is  formed  by  industrial  and  economical  events. 
The  first  condition  of  human  existence,  the  first  object 
of  human  association,  is  the  production  and  distribution 
of  wealth.  When  men's  status  is  left  unregulated  by 
social  tradition  or  religious  subordination,  every  move- 
ment in  other  fields  of  activity,  in  ethics,  science,  specu- 
lation, or  art,  however  significant  they  may  seem  in 
themselves,  must  sooner  or  later  come  into  connection 
with  the  economical  foundations  of  society  if  they  are 
to  effect  great  lasting  results. 

Industrial  Character  of  Modern  History. — Now, 
the  period  here  reviewed  is  remarkable  for  unpre- 
cedented advances  both  in  national  freedom  and  social 
industry.  The  concurrence  of  the  two  orders  of  changes 
is  a  relation  of  the  highest  importance.  If  either  revolu- 
tion had  operated  at  a  different  time,  or  in  a  differently 
adjusted  connection,  the  final  result  must  have  departed 
indefinitely  from  that  which  really  occurred.  The  main 
effect  of  the  political  movement  was  the  removal  of 
hindrances  to  human  progress  in  continental  Europe. 
The  great  result  of  the  economical  movement  was  the 
synchronous  introduction  of  the  means  to  achieve  an 
enormous  measure  of  that  progress.  In  truth,  the 
political  revolution  obtains  most  importance  when 
viewed  as  a  negative  movement  ancillary  to  the  in- 
dustrial revolution.  Future  historians  of  our  civilization 
will  not  fail  to  dwell  on  the  geographical  circumstances 
which  enabled  the  two  processes  to  be  consummated 
side  by  side.  Eliminate  the  institution  of  citizen 
armies,  the  introduction  of  the  Code  and  various 
agrarian   reforms,  the  territorial  dispensation  of  1815, 


RESULTANT  IDEAS  AND  TENDENCIES    321 

and  the  awakening  among  some  peoples  of  a  spirit  of 
nationality  and  independence,  and  the  chief  remaining 
features  of  nineteenth-century  society  in  Europe,  which 
were  not  evidently  survivals  from  the  past  (like  the 
recrudescence  of  religious  obscurantism),  will  be  seen 
to  be  mainly  built  up  by  the  industrial  system  and 
economical  theories  which  proceeded  from  England. 

Comprehensive  Character  of  Modern  Historical 
Investigation. — Hence,  as  we  have  already  said,  in 
bringing  the  historical  method  to  bear  on  present 
questions,  it  is  necessary  to  qualify  and  extend  the 
results  from  one  order  of  facts  by  constant  reference 
to  those  from  others.  It  is,  of  course,  desirable  to 
start  from  the  broadest  possible  groundwork,  and  to 
proceed  in  the  search  for  true  relations  and  momentous 
facts  by  following  all  the  threads  of  industrial,  scientific, 
intellectual,  and  artistic  development  which  together 
form  the  web  of  our  highly  organized  civilization.  But 
while  the  existing  state  of  historical  knowledge  may 
necessitate  very  imperfect  estimates  of  minor  influences, 
it  is  at  least  imperative  neither  to  confine  criticism  to 
facts  of  a  political  character  nor  to  neglect  those  of  an 
economical  nature.  "  Circumstances,"  said  Burke,  "  are 
what  render  every  civil  and  political  scheme  beneficial 
or  noxious  to  mankind."  The  tendency  of  industrial 
development  has  been  to  invest  with  social  importance 
all  those  members  of  society  concerned  in  the  pro- 
duction and  distribution  of  wealth.  The  circumstances 
which  now  determine  whether  political  institutions  are 
beneficial  or  noxious  to  mankind  are  the  wishes  and 
requirements  of  the  whole  economical  organization. 

Industrial  Expansion  and  the  Idea  of  Progress. — 
At  the  present  time  it  is  becoming  continually  more 
evident  that  in  self-governed  communities  the  n^ost 
important  changes  of  the  near  future  will  be  brought 


322         HISTORY   OF   MODERN   EUROPE 

about  by  the  prevailing  views  on  the  modern  economical 
system.  Society's  efforts  to  increase  its  welfare  will  be 
guided  by  the  dominant  opinions  concerning  the  process 
by  which  things  have  become  what  they  are,  and  the 
possibility  of  introducing  modification  in  favour  of  its 
effective  but  less  fortunate  members.  Such  opinions 
must  be  of  an  historical  nature ;  and  they  will  be  just 
and  beneficial  in  proportion  to  the  care  and  assiduity 
with  which  they  have  been  formed  from  the  consideration 
of  industrial  and  economical  history.  Any  attempts  of 
publicists  to  arrest,  rather  than  to  direct,  the  movement 
towards  changes  of  this  kind  can  now  only  provoke 
impatience  or  occasion  misconceptions.  Our  social 
organization  is  constantly  expanding,  and  involving  new 
needs  and  desires.  Reform,  being  only  the  conscious 
adaptation  of  society  to  changed  conditions,  inevitably 
becomes  more  frequent  and  fundamental  as  society 
expands  and  grows  more  autonomous  and  less  restrained 
by  arbitrary  traditions.  The  political  tendencies  of  an 
age  like  our  own  must,  therefore,  necessarily  be  in  the 
direction  of  what  is  commonly  called  progress.  To 
deplore  such  tendencies,  or  to  regard  them  as  destructive 
to  the  social  order,  is  as  futile  and  as  fanciful  as  to 
dread  grievous  consequences  to  the  universe  from  the 
rule  of  gravitation.  Perhaps  the  attraction  of  matter 
may  some  day  reduce  the  cosmos  to  chaos;  possibly 
political  reform  may  land  society  in  anarchy ;  but  it  is 
certain  that  as  a  catastrophe  would  be  the  result  of  a 
momentary  suspension  of  the  law  of  gravitation,  so  an 
immeasurable  disaster  would  attend  the  cessation  for 
any  length  of  time  of  political  advance  in  a  period  of 
industrial  expansion. 

Ground  for  Confidence  in  the  Idea  of  Progress. — 
And  the  same  cause  which  has  produced  the  belief  in 
progress  urges  to  its  fulfilment.     The  motive  power  now 


RESULTANT   IDEAS   AND  TENDENCIES     323 

impelling  societies  to  continually  readjust  their  insti- 
tutions by  conscious  innovations  is  the  pressure  of  the 
industrial  system.  The  source  of  men's  confidence  in 
their  forward  movement  is  the  knowledge  that  this 
pressure  has  been  induced  by  their  own  exertions  and 
advance  in  intelligence  and  freedom.  That  progress  in  its 
present  phase  is  greatly  extending  individual  happiness  is 
an  assumption  which  historical  criticism  must  seriously 
qualify.  But  it  is  abundantly  evident  that,  as  the  indus- 
trial system  has  occasioned  a  large  increase  of  aggregate 
prosperity  and  a  considerable  advance  in  average  intelli- 
gence ;  as  it  has  extended  contractual  relations  till  every 
member  is  personally  free  within  the  existing  economical 
conditions  ;  as  it  has  elevated  the  functions  of  labour  to 
an  equality  with  the  functions  of  fighting,  governing,  and 
learning; — so  it  is  ever  striving  to  assign  participation  in 
the  material  products  and  honorary  distinctions  of  society 
to  every  man  in  proportion  to  his  contribution  to  the 
common  stock  of  wealth,  comfort,  contentment,  and 
knowledge. 


APPENDIX 

SOURCES  OF  INFORMATION  WHICH  SHOULD  FIRST  BE 
USED  TO  EXTEND  ACQUAINTANCE  WITH  THE  SUB- 
JECTS TREATED  IN  THIS   VOLUME:— 

Bain  :  Scandinavia. 

Bartholdy,  Mendelssohn:  Gesch.  Griechenlands. 

Baumgarten  :  Gesch.  Spaniens. 

Bernhardi  :  Gesch.  Russlands. 

BlEDERMANN  :  Deutschland  im  achtzehnten  Jahrhundert, 

Caird  :  The  Critical  Philosophy  of  Immanuel  Kant. 
Cambridge  Modern  History,  Vols.  viii. ,  ix. 

Clerke,  Agnes  :  History  of  Astronomy  in  the  Nineteenth  Century* 
Cunningham:    Growth  of  English  Industry  and  Commerce:   Modern 
Times. 

Geikie  :  The  Founders  of  Geology. 

Hadow  :  The  Oxford  History  of  Music  :  The  Viennese  Period, 

Ingram  :  History  of  Political  Economy. 

Karmarsch  :  Gesch.  der  Technologic. 

Lichtenberger  :  History  of  German  Theology  in  the  Nineteenth  Century, 
English  trans. 

Mantoux  :  La  Revolution  Industrielle  au  XVHIe  Siicle, 

Oncken  :  Das  Zeitalter  Friedrichs  des  Grossen. 

Overton  and  Relton  :  History  of  the  English  Churchy  1 714-1800. 

Political  History  of  England,  ed.  by  Hunt  and  Lane  Poole,  Vols,  x.,  ad. 
Price  :  History  of  Political  Economy  in  England, 

Reuchlin  :  Gesch.  Italiens, 
Rose:  Life  of  Napoleon  I. 

Saintsbury  :  History  of  Nineteenth  Century  Literature  {in  England). 
Scherer  :  History  of  German  Literature.     English  trans. 
Seignobos  :  Political  History  of  Contemporary  Europe.    English  trans. 
Sorel  :  Europe  et  la  Rholution  Frangaise, 

325 


326         HISTORY   OF  MODERN  EUROPE 

Springer  :  Gesch.  Oesterreichs. 

Stephens,  Morse  :  History  of  the  French  Revolution. 

Sybel  :  Gesch.  des  Revolutionszeit. 

Thorpe  :  Essays  in  Historical  Chemistry. 

Treitschke  :  Deutsche  Gesch.  im  neunzehnten  JahrhunderU 


SUPPLEMENTARY   LIST   OF  SOURCES  OF 
INFORMATION 

Abbey  and  Overton  :  The  English  Church  in  the  Eighteenth  Century. 

Abbey  :  The  English  Church  a7id  its  Bishops^  1 700-1800. 

Abbott:  Memoir  of  Kant. 

Agricultural  Survey  of  Lincolnshire. 

Agriculture^  Select  Committee  on,  1833.  » 

Annual  Register. 

Austin  :  Lectures  on  Jurisprudence. 

Bagehot  :  Literary  Studies. 

Baines  :  History  of  the  Cotton  Manufacture, 

Balfour  :  Educational  Systems. 

Bauer  :  Gesch.  der  Christlichen  Kirche. 

Blanqui  :  History  of  Political  Economy  in  Europe.     Eng.  trans. 

Bluntschli  :  Gesch.  der  neuern  Staatswissenschaft. 

Bodley  :  The  Church  in  France. 

BoNAR  :  Malthus  and  his  Work. 

Boys  :  Agricultural  Report  on  Kent. 

Brandes  :    Die     Hauptstromungen     der     Literatur     des     neunzehnten 

Jahrhunderts. 
Brodrick  :  English  Land  and  English  Landlords. 
Broglie  :  Due  de,  Frederick  LI.  and  Maria  Theresa, 
Brosch  :  Gesch.  des  Kirchenstaates. 
Buckle  :  History  of  Civilization, 
Burns  :  Life  and  Works. 
Byron  :  Life  and  Works. 

Carlyle:  Works. 

Coleridge,  S.T.  :  Poetical  Works. 

„  „  Biographia  Liter  aria, 

,,  ,,  Lay  Sermons. 

Colletta  :  Storia  di  Napoli. 
Condorcet  :  Esquisse  d'un    Tableau  Historique  des  Progrh  de  T Esprit 

Humain. 
CosSA  :  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Political  Economy.    Eng.  trans. 
Coupland  :  Spirit  of  Goeth^s  Faust. 
Cowper  :   Works  and  Life,  by  Southey. 
Crabbe  :  Poetical  Works  and  Letters. 
Creasy  :  History  of  the  Ottoman  Turks. 
Cuvier  :   Theory  of  the  Earth.     Eng.  trans. 
CuviER  :  Histoire  des  Sciences  Naturelles  depuis  1789. 


APPENDIX  327 

Davy,  Sir  Humphry  :  Works  and  Life, 
DOWELL  :  History  of  Taxation. 

DuHRiNG  :  Kritische  Geschichte  des  Nationaldkonomie  und  des  Socialismus, 
DuNTZER  :  Life  of  Goethe. 
, ,  Life  of  Schiller, 

Dictionary  of  Political  Economy, 

"Et)^^  I  State  of  the  Poor. 
Ellis  :  Life  of  Count  Rumford. 
English  Historical  Review,  1886-1906. 

Farini  :  Lo  Stato  Romano. 

Farrar  :  Bampton  Lectures,  1862. 

Felkin  :  History  of  Machine-wrought  Hosiery  and  ILace  Manufactures. 

FiCHTE  :   The  Popular  Works  of,     English  trans. 

FiNLAY  :  Greece  under  Ottoman  and  Venetian  Domination, 

,,       History  of  the  Greek  Revolution, 
Fisher  :  Napoleonic  Statesmanship :  Germany, 
Flint  :  Philosophy  of  History. 
Freeman  :  The  Ottoman  Power  in  Europe. 
Fyffe  :  History  of  Modern  Europe. 

Galloway  :  A  History  of  Coal  Mining. 
Gervinus  :   Gesch.  der  Deutsehen  Dichtung. 

,,  Gesch.  des  neunzehnten  Jahrhunderts. 

Ghetti  :  Storia  della  Indipendenza  Italiana. 
Gneist  :  Contemporary  Review,  September,  1885. 
Goethe  :  Sdmmtliche  Werke, 
GoTTSCHALL  :  Die  Deutsche  Nationalliteratur, 
Grant  :  History  of  Physical  Astronomy. 
Gualterio  :  Gli  Ultimi  Rivolgementi  Italiani, 

Halle R  :  Gesch.  der  Russischen  Liter atur. 

Hartley  :  Observations  on  Man,  His  Frame,  His  Duty^  and  His  Expecta- 
tions, 
Hausser  :  Deutsche  Geschichte. 

Held  :  Zwei  Biicher  zur  socialen  Geschichte  Englands, 
Henne-AM-Rhyn  :  Kulturgeschichte  der  Netiesten  Zeit. 
Herschel,  Sir  John  :  Outlines  of  Astronomy. 

Hettner  :   Gesch.  der  Deutsehen  Literatur  im  achtzehntenjahrhundert. 
Histoire  Generale  :  ed.  by  Lavisse  and  Rambaud. 
Holbach  :  Systlme  de  la  Nature. 
HoNEGGER  :  Grundsteine  einer  allgemeinen  Kulturgeschichte  der  Neuesten 

Zeit. 
HosKYNS,  Wren  :  Systems  of  Land  Tenure. 
Humboldt  :  Cosmos.  Eng.  trans. 
Hume,  David  :  Essays. 
Hume,  Martin  :  Modern  Spain. 
Huxley  :  Science  and  Culture^  and  other  Essays. 

Kant  :  Kritik  der  Reinen  Vernunft. 

,,        Grundlegung  zur  Metaphysic  der  Sitten. 
Kautz  :  Die  Geschichtlicke  Entwickelung  der  National-Oekonomik. 
Kingzett  :  The  History,  Prodmts^  and  Processes  of  the  Alkali  Trade, 
KOPP  :  Entwickelung  der  Chemie. 


328  HISTORY   OF   MODERN  EUROPE 

LaNFREY  :  History  of  Napoleon  I. 

Lecky  :  History  of  England  in  Eighteenth  Century, 

Levi,  Leone  :  History  of  British  Commerce, 

LOCKHART  :  Life  of  Scott. 

Lyell  :  Principles  of  Geology. 

Mackay  :  The  Tubingen  School  and  its  Antecedents, 
Macpherson  :  Annals  of  Commerce. 
McCuLLOCH  :  Dictionary  of  Commerce. 
Maine,  Sir  Henry  :  Ancient  Law. 

,,  Popular  Government, 

Malthus  :  Essay  on  Papulation. 

Marsh  :  History  and  Methods  of  Palceontological  Discovery, 
Martens  :  Recueil  des  Principaux  Traites. 
May,  Sir  Erskine  :  Democracy  in  Europe. 

,,         ,,  ,,         Constitutional  History  of  England. 

Metternich^ s  Autobiography. 
MiCHELET  :  Histoire  du  XIXe  Sihle. 
Mijatovics  :  History  of  Modern  Servia. 

Mill,  James  :  Analysis  of  the  Phenomena  of  the  Human  Mind. 
Miller  :  Europe  and  the  Ottoman  Empire  before  the  Nineteenth  Century  \ 

Eng.  Hist.  Rev.^  vol.  xvi. 
Mines,  Select  Committee  on  Accidents  in,  1835. 
Moltke  :  Essay  on  Poland. 
Montesquieu  :  Esprit  des  Lois. 
MORLEY,  J.  :  Critical  Miscellanies. 

,,  Voltaire. 

,,  Diderot. 

,,  Rousseau. 

MoRiER  :  Xfxpud)  Systems  of  Land  Tenure, 

Napoleon  :  Correspondance. 
Nicolini  :  History  of  the  Jesuits. 
Nisco :  Storia  d" Italia. 

Oman  :  History  of  the  Peninsular  War  (in  progress). 

Paris  :  Life  of  Sir  Humphry  Davy. 

Playfair  :   Works. 

Porter  :  Progress  of  the  Nation. 

Powell,  Baden  :  Radiant  Heat ;  British  Association  Reports, 

Prothero  :  Pioneers  and  Progress  of  English  Farming. 

QuiNET :  G^nie  des  Religions. 

Rae  :  Contemporary  Review,  1883. 

Ranke  :  History  of  Servia  and  the  Servian  Revolution.     Eng.  trans. 

Report  from  the  Select  Committee  on  Bills  of  Enclosures,  1800. 

Report  from  the  Select  Committee  on  the  Cultivation  of  Waste  Lands  ^  1795. 

RiCARDO  :   Works,  edited  by  McCulloch. 

Rogers,  Thorold  :  Six  Centuries  of  Work  and  Wages. 

Roscher:  Gesch.  der  National- CEkonomik  in  Deutschland, 

Rose  :  Napoleonic  Studies. 

Rousseau  :  Contrat  Social, 

„  Emile. 

Rumford,  Count:  Essays, 


APPENDIX  829 

Say,  J.  B.  :  Traiti  d* J^conomie  Politique. 

ScHLEiERMACHER ;  Life^  as  unfolded  in  his  Autobiography  and  Letters. 

Eng.  trans. 
ScHERR  :  Deutsche  Kultur-und-Sittengeschichte. 
Schiller  :  Werke. 

SCHLOSSER  :  Gesch.  des  achtzehnten  Jfahrhunderts.    See  note  p.  1 1 7. 
Schmidt,  Julian  :  Gesch.  der  Deutschen  Literatur. 
Schuyler  :  Peter  the  Great. 
Scott,  Sir  W.  :  Novels :  Poetical  Works. 
SCRIVENOR  :  History  of  the  Iron  Trade. 
Seebohm  :  On  the  Manufacture  of  Crucible  Cast  Steel, 
Seeley  :  Life  and  Times  of  Stein. 
Seth  :  Development  from  Kant  to  Hegel, 
SiME  :  Lessing. 
Smiles  :  Lives  of  the  Early  Engineers, 

,,        Lives  of  Bo7ilton  and  Watt. 

„        Industrial  Biography. 

„        Men  of  Invention  and  Industry, 
Smithes  Wealth  of  Nations.     McCulloch's  edition. 
Smith  :  Memoirs  of  the  Marquis  of  Pombal. 
Smith,  Angus  :  Memoir  of  John  Dalton^  and  History  of  the  Atomic 

Theory. 
Southey  :  Poetical  Works. 

„  Lipe. 

Stanley  :  Lectures  on  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Church, 
Stuckenberg  :  Life  of  Immanuel  Kant. 

Taine  :  The  Ancient  Rigime.     Eng.  trans. 

,,        The  Revolution.     Eng.  trans. 
Tait  :  Recent  Advances  in  Physical  Science, 
Thomson  :  History  of  Chemistry. 
Thurston  :  History  of  the  Steam-engine. 
TiCKNOR  :  History  of  Spanish  literature, 
ToOKE  :    History  of  Prices. 
ToCQUEViLLE  :  DAncien  Regime. 

TuLL  :  The  Horse-hoeing  Husbandry^  edited  by  Cobbett. 
TwiSS :  Progress  of  Political  Economy. 

Wallace  :  Russia. 

Walpole,  Spencer  :  History  of  England. 

Weber  :   Weltgeschichte. 

Weld  :  History  of  the  Royal  Society. 

Wellington  :  Despatches. 

Whewell  :  History  of  the  Inductive  Sciences, 

Wordsworth  :  Prose  Works. 

„  Poetical  Works. 

Young,  Arthur  :  Travels  in  France, 

„  Eastern  Tour. 

„  Annals  of  Agriculture, 

„  Farmers'  Letters. 

„  Survey  of  Lincolnshire, 

„  Northern  Tour. 

Young,  Thomas  :  Works  and  Life,  edited  by  Peacock  and  Leitch. 


INDEX 


Agriculture  in  France,  69  j  advance 
in  England,  175 

Alexander  I.  of  Russia,  27,  94,  loi  j 
submits  to  Napoleon,  104 ;  con- 
spires with  Napoleon  at  Tilsit, 
105  J  attacked  by  Napoleon,  1 12  j 
assumes  the  part  of  general  libe- 
rator, 1 14 ;  on  citizen  armies, 
120  n.  ;  his  character,  150  j  efforts 
to  reduce  serfage,  151  ;  early  re- 
forms, 152 ;  disappointments,  153 ; 
Speranski's  ministry,  154;  second 
period,  156  ;  seizes  Finland,  156  ; 
war  with  Turkey,  159;  and  the 
Wealth  of  Nations^  215  ;  and  the 
Russian  nation,  305 

Alfieri,  140  ;  on  aspect  of  England, 
182  «.,  306 

Ali  Pasha,  168 

America,  South,  British  commerce 
with,  instituted,  1 10  n. 

Arago,  232 

Aranda,  36 

Ark  Wright,  203,  208,  xi. 

Armies,  in  eighteenth  century,  2 ; 
in  France,  65  j  revolutionary,  88, 
119;  introduction  of  short  service 
citizen  armies,  118;  army  reform 
in  Turkey,  162  ;  social  discipline, 

307 
Arndt,  116,  xiv. 
Auerstadt,  battle  of,  103 
Augustus  III.,  45 
Austen,  Jane,  302,  xiv. 
Austerlitz,  battle  of,  loi 
Austria,  in  eighteenth  century,  26 ; 

after    peace    of    Luneville,    94 ; 

after    Austerlitz,    loi  ;    war     of 


1809,  III  ;  in  alliance  with  Na- 
poleon, 113;  in  war  of  Libera- 
tion, 122 ;  at  the  Congress  of 
Vienna,  127,  128 ;  retrograde 
policy,  138 ;  in  Italy,  142,  143 
Avignon  annexed  to  France,  87 


B 


Bacon,  on  inventions,  194 ;  on 
balance  of  trade,  209 

Baden,  after  peace  of  Luneville, 
94 ;  after  Austerlitz,  102 ;  re- 
forms in,  133 

Baer,  von,  246  n. 

Bagehot,  on  Waverley  novels,  299 

Bairactar,  163 

Bavaria,  after  peace  of  Luneville, 
94 ;  after  Austerlitz,  102 ;  at 
Congress  of  Vienna,  128 ;  reforms 
in,  133 

Beethoven,  278-280,  xii. 

Bell,  Andrew,  314  «.,  xiii. 

Bell,  Sir  Charles,  xiv. 

Bentham,  192,  258,  309,  xii. 

Bergman,  236,  241  n. 

Berlin,  decree  of,  106 

Bernstorff,  158 

BerthoUet,  204,  235,  236,  237 

Berzelius,  236  «.,  238,  xiii. 

Bichat,  246  «.,  xiii. 

Black,  196,  235,  241 

Bliicher,  119,  123 

Bluntschli  on  Frederick  the  Great, 
20 

Bohler,  Peter,  317 

Bonaparte,  Napoleon,  his  despotism, 
89  ;  First  Consul,  90 ;  his  charac- 
ter and  policy,  91  ;  his  German 


332 


HISTORY   OF  MODERN   EUROPE 


policy,  93 ;  consul  for  life,  95 
concordat  with  Pius  VII.,  96 
attitude  towards  the  churches,  96 
publishes  the  Code  Napoleon,  98 
made  emperor,  100.  »S(?^Napoleon. 

Bonaparte,  Joseph,  105,  144 

Bonaparte,  Jerome,  105,  133 

Bonaparte,  Louis,  105 

Boulton,  196,  201,  208 

Bourgeoisie,  continental,  309 

Bramah,  201,  xiii. 

Bridgewater,  Duke  of,  1 79 

Brindley,  179,  209 

Brongniart,  247 

Brougham,  231 

Browning,  on  an  age  of  hope,  i 

Bucharest,  peace  of,  159,  160 

Biirger,  298 

Burke,  8,  321 

Burns,  on  the  Cotter,  182  «.  ;  as  a 
poet,  286-288 ;  on  charity,  296  n. ; 
on  kings,  307 

Byron,  on  rebellion  against  the 
Turk,  150;  on  Ali  Pasha,  169; 
as  a  European  poet,  294-297,  xiv. 


Cadell  on  Scott's  influence,  300  n. 

Calonne,  63 

Campomanes,  36 

Canals,  in  England,  179,  208 ;  in 
Sweden,  158  n. 

Carbonari,  144 

Carlisle  and  electrolysis,  238 

Carlyle  on  tools,  194 

Catherine  II.,  her  reign  and  policy, 
28-31  ;  protects  the  Jesuits,  36 ; 
intervenes  in  Poland,  45 ;  her 
Turkish  policy,  160  j  educates 
Alexander  I.,  150 

Catholic  Church,  in  eighteenth 
century,  2,  4 ;  disestablished  in 
France,  83  ;  loses  its  principalities 
in  Germany,  94  j  re-established  in 
France  by  Bonaparte's  concordat, 
95  ;  Ultramontanism,  97  ;  Febro- 
nianism,  97  n. 

Cartwright,  his  power-loom,  204, 
xii. 

Cavendish,  235 

Charles  III.  of  Spain,  IV.  of  Naples, 


expels  the  Jesuits,  35 ;  his  reign 
in  Spain,  36  ;  his  reign  in  Naples, 

37 

Charles  IV.  of  Spain,  36 

Charles  Emanuel  III.,  39 

Charles  Frederick  of  Baden,  133 

Charles  XIII.  of  Sweden,  156 

Chladni  and  acoustics,  232 

Clement  XIV.  suppresses  the  Jesuits, 
36 

Clement,  mechanical  engineer,  201 

Code  Napoleon,  98,  132,  134 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  on  English  land- 
lords and  the  mercantile  spirit, 
185  ;  and  the  French  Revolution, 
281,  289  J  as  a  critic  and  poet, 
290,  xiii, 

Colletta,  on  Bonaparte's  rule  in 
Italy,  141  n. 

Condillac,  259 

Condorcet,  on  population,  216  n. 

Congress  of  Vienna,  122,  125-130; 
Greeks  at,  167  ;  Serbs  at,  173  ; 
the  new  economics  at,  215  j 
changes  at,  303 

Consalvi,  143 

Constitutional  idea,  in  eighteenth 
century,  11,  57  }  in  nineteenth 
century,  308-310 

Continental  system,  106 

Cort,  Henry,  198 

Cotton  manufacture,  177  ;  spinning 
machinery  and  prices,  203 

Criticism,  the  age  of,  6 ;  trans- 
cendental, 250 

Cowper,  on  the  poor,  182  «. ;  the 
Task^  285  ;  on  Burns,  287 

Crabbe,  281  ;  the  Village^  286,  297 

Crompton,  203 

Cuvier,  on  fossils,  243  ;  on  French 
zoology,  244  n, ;  his  teleological 
conceptions  in  biology,  246,  xiv. 


Dalton,  his  theory  of  multiple  pro- 
portions, 237,  xiii. 

Darby,  Abraham,  198 

Davy,  invents  safety  lamp,  199; 
and  the  dynamical  theory  of  heat, 
233 ;  and  chlorine,  236 ;  and 
electrolysis,  238 


INDEX 


333 


Delisle  and  crystallography,  241  n. 

Denmark,  revolution  of,  1660,  40 ; 
under  Frederick  III.,  41  ;  under 
Christian  V.,  41,  42  ;  under  Fre- 
derick IV.,  42  ;  under  Frederick 
VI.,  158;  losses  of,  159 

Denner  invented  clarinet,  280  n. 

Descartes,  225,  249 

Dornberg,  iii 

Duma,  Catherine's,  29  ! 

Dumont,  193 


E 


Economics,  in  eighteenth  century,  4 ; 
Napoleon's  mercantilism,  107 ; 
the  old  mercantile  system,  209 ; 
the  Wealth  of  Nations,  211-215  ; 
Mai  thus  on  population,  215-217  ; 
the  Ricardian  theory  of  rent,  218  ; 
conflict  between  labour  and  capi- 
tal, 219;  Say's  doctrine  of  gluts 
and  international  trade,  219-221  ; 
conflict  involved  in  the  industrial 
order,  310 

Edgeworth,  Maria,  302 

Education,  314 

Eighteenth  century  movement,  5 

Elgin,  Lord,  197 

Empire,  Holy  Roman,  in  eighteenth 
century,  22 ;  effect  of  Frederick 
the  Great's  career,  23  ;  its  ruin 
completed  by  Bonaparte,  92; 
formally  dissolved,  103 

Emser  Punktation,  97  n. 

England,  aristocratic  government 
in,  46 ;  influence  of  Pitt,  47  j 
pretensions  of  George  III.  to 
absolute  government,  48 ;  growth 
of  liberalism  in  Parliament,  48 ; 
third  coalition  war,  ICX) ;  pro- 
vokes continental  system,  106 ; 
in  alliance  with  Spain,  109  j  trade 
with  South  America  instituted, 
no  «.  ;  holds  Portugal,  112  ;  at 
Waterloo,  123  ;  after  Congress  of 
Vienna,  129;  moral  gain,  129; 
measures  against  piracy  and  slave- 
trade,  130;  area  of  its  industrial 
revolution,  174,  321  ;  advance  of 
agriculture,  175  ;  transformation 
of   the    textile    industries,    177 ; 


general  advance  of  manufactures, 
178;  expansion  of  trade,  179; 
sufferings  of  the  labouring  classes, 
180 ;  increase  of  population, 
wealth,  and  debt,  \%on.',  the  old 
house  industry,  182  ;  rise  of  the 
factory  system,  183  ;  enclosure  of 
commons,  184  ;  decline  of  small 
farming,  184  ;  the  poor-law,  186 
machinery  and  operatives,  187 
leases  and  yearly  tenancy,  188 
decay  of  the  yeomanry,  189 
social  aspects  of  the  industrial 
revolution,  189  ;  industrialism 
and  political  representation,  190; 
Bentham's  clear  rule  of  reform, 
192 ;  social  dangers  of  the  new 
industrial  system,  209 ;  influence 
of  Adam  Smith,  192,  214 ;  place 
of  the  unemployed,  221 ;  British 
empirical  psychology,  256-259 ; 
national  character  of  English 
literature,  281 ;  Methodism  and 
realism,  283  ;  naturalism  and  the 
revolution  in  literature,  chap.  xi. 

Equality,  principle  of,  9 

Euler,  227 


Febronius,  97  n. 

Ferdinand  IV.  of  Naples,  37 

Ferdinand  VII.  of  Spain,  148 ;  as 
Prince  of  Asturias,  108 

Ferrier,  Susan,  302 

Feudalism,  persistence  of,  2 ;  in 
France,  67  ;  in  Prussia,  135 

Feyjoo,  146 

Fielding,  282 

Fichte,  116,  254;  on  the  German 
ideal  of  culture,  274 

Finland,  106,  156 

Floridablanca  (Monino),  36 

Foscolo  Ugo,  140 

Fouche,  100,  126 

France,  culture  of,  in  eighteenth 
century,  9  ;  monarchy  in,  10 ;  ban- 
ishment of  the  Jesuits,  35  j  under 
Louis  XVI.,  50 ;  Turgot's  minis- 
try, 50-54;  revolution  rendered 
inevitable,  54 ;  till  then  unneces- 
sary, 55  ;  alliance  with  America, 


S34 


HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 


62  ;  conduct  of  the  notables  and 
parliaments,  63  ;  union  of  orders 
in  Dauphiny,  64  ;  general  hostility 
towards  the  government,  65  ;  con- 
dition of  the  peasantry,  67-71  ; 
diversity  of  conditions,  70 ;  popu- 
lar discontent  excited,  71  ;  dis- 
turbing efifect  of  administrative 
changes,  71 ;  character  of  the 
nobility,  72-75 ;  importance  of 
the  middle  classes,  75  j  the 
dangerous  classes,  76,  77  ;  wide- 
spread disturbance,  78 ;  meeting 
of  the  States-General,  78 ;  the 
National  Assembly  declared,  80 ; 
insurrection  in  Paris  and  the  pro- 
vinces, 80 ;  feudalism  abolished, 
81  ;  the  Assembly  coerced  by  the 
mob,  82  ;  persistence  of  anarchy, 
83  ;  fear  of  foreign  invasion,  84  ; 
the  Girondists  promote  the  Jaco- 
bin cause,  85 ;  outbreak  of  the 
revolutionary  war,  86 ;  tyranny 
of  the  revolutionary  governments, 
87  ;  triumph  of  the  revolutionary 
armies,  SS  ;  coup  d^etat^  Brumaire, 
18,  90 ;  Bonaparte's  policy,  91  ; 
the  Concordat,  95  ;  the  code,  98 ; 
first  empire,  100 ;  third  coalition 
war,  100;  defeats  Prussia,  103; 
growth  of  affluence,  107  n. ;  sanc- 
tions the  continental  system,  107  ; 
invades  Spain,  109  ;  attacks  Aus- 
tria, no;  invades  Prussia,  113; 
defeated  at  Leipzig,  121  ;  the 
Hundred  Days,  122 ;  second  re- 
turn of  the  Bourbons,  124 ;  at 
the  Congress  of  Vienna,  126  j 
backward  state  of  iron  industry, 
202 ;  eminence  of  French  scien- 
tists, 235,  244  n.  y  philosophy  in, 

259 

Francis,  II.  as  Emperor  of  Ger- 
many, I.  as  Emperor  of  Austria, 
26 ;  in  third  coalition  war,  loi  ; 
dissolves  formally  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire,  102 

Frederick  the  Great,  on  monarchy, 
13  J  command  to  Podewils,  16  ; 
compared  with  Peter  the  Great, 
18 ;  relation  to  the  intellectual 
movement,  19,  20 ;  personal  cha- 
racter of  his  rule,  21  j  his  relation 


to   Germany,   22 ;    protects    the 

Jesuits,    35 ;     despises    German 

authors,  275 
Frederick  III.  of  Denmark,  40 
Frederick  IV.  of  Denmark,  42 
Frederick  William  I.,  21 
Frederick  William  III.  humiliated 

by  Napoleon,  103 
Free  cities,  German,  for  the  most 

part  abolished,  94,  128 
Fresnel,  232 

Friderikshamm,  peace  of,  156 
Friedland,  battle  of,  104 


Geikie,  Sir  Archibald,  on  fossils, 
243^. 

Geneva,  61 

George  III.,  48 

Germany,  in  eighteenth  century,  22  ; 
after  the  peace  of  Luneville,  92- 
95  ;  revolt  against  Ultramon tan- 
ism,  97  n.  J  after  Austerlitz,  102  ; 
insurrectionary  spirit,  113;  intel- 
lectual revival,  1 14;  birth  of 
modern  German  patriotism,  115, 
305  ;  leadership  of  Prussia,  ii6; 
battle  of  Leipzig,  121  ;  at  the 
Congress  of  Vienna,  128 ;  the 
Deutscher  Bund,  128;  Napoleon's 
influence  on,  92-95,  132  ;  progress 
of  the  different  states,  133  ;  poli- 
tical attitude  of  the  people,  139  ; 
Kant's  influence,  253  j  national 
literature,  chap.  x.  ;  the  German 
ideal  of  culture,  274,  287  ;  Fichte 
on,  274  ;  Thomas  Young  on,  275  ; 
social  aspect  of  the  literary  revival, 
275  J  the  German  stage,  276 ; 
music,  277-280 

Gervinus,  on  Congress  of  Vienna, 
125  ;  on  our  age,  303 

Giannone,  37 

Girondists,  61  «.,  85,  87 

Gliick,  theory  of  opera,  278 

Gneisenau,  119 

Godoy,  36,  108,  146 

Goethe,  on  tradition,  50  j  on  meta- 
morphosis and  homology,  245, 
246  n. ;  early  association  with 
Herder,  265 ;  early  works,  266 ; 


INDEX 


relation  to  European  culture,  268  ; 
Faust  as  an  historical  document, 
268 ;  Faust  as  a  human  docu- 
ment, 269  ;  Goethe's  idea  of  self- 
culture,  270  ;  Goethe  as  a  citizen, 
271  ;  in  comradeship  with  Schil- 
ler, their  classical  ideal,  272 ; 
Meisters  Lehrjahre,  277  ;  on 
Mozart,  278,  xiv. 

Goldoni,  140 

Greece,  position  of  the  Greeks  in 
the  Ottoman  Empire,  164  ;  intel- 
lectual awakening,  165 ;  Philo- 
muse  Society,  166 ;  Philike 
Hetairia,  168 ;  influence  of  Ali 
Pasha,  168 ;  at  the  Congress  of 
Vienna,  167  ;  national  idea,  306 

Griffenfeldt,  42 

Gustavus  III.,  42-44 


Hadley,  226 

Hadow,  on  chamber  music,  279 

Hall,  Sir  James,  241 

Hanover,  134,  135 

Hardenberg,    134 ;   his  legislation, 

I35>  137 

Hargreaves,  203 

Harrison,  226 

Hartley,  on  man,  256-259 

Haiiy,  and  crystallography,  242  n. 

Haydn,  278,  xi. 

Heine,  on  Napoleon's  despotism  and 
Napoleon's  hand,  90 

Helvetius,  7  n. 

Herder,  on  taste,  260  ;  and  national 
culture,  263  ;  and  the  historical 
idea,  264 ;  his  influence  on  Goethe, 
265,  xii. 

Herschel,  Sir  John,  on  progress  of 
material  civilization,  174 

Herschel,  Sir  William,  on  astro- 
nomy, 228-230 

Hi3inger,  238 

History,  modern,  change  of  method 
required,  3 1 8-321,  vii. 

Hobbes,  on  wealth,  194 

Holbach,  on  monarchy,  57  «.,  58 

Holland,  in  eighteenth  century,  61  j 
after  Congress  of  Vienna,  129 

Hontheim  (Febronius),  97  n. 

Humboldt,  on  geognosy,  243 


Hume,  on  monarchical  government, 
13  ;  on  the  French  finangiers,  68  ; 
in  relation  to  Kant,  250-256 

Huntsman,  Benjamin,  invents  cast 
steel,  200 

Hutton  and  geology,  240 

Huxley,  247 


Industry  in  eighteenth  century,  3. 
See  Revolution,  Industrial ;  Ma- 
chinery ;  England. 

Ionian  Islands,  129. 

Italy,  spirit  of  reform  in,  37 ;  re- 
publics, 61  J  after  Austerlitz,  102  ; 
at  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  128  ; 
need  of  autonomy,  139  ;  Napo- 
leon's influence,  140;  references 
to  independence,  141 ;  restoration 
in,  143 ;  the  sette,  144  j  national 
feeling,  305 


Jacobins,  82 

Jacquard,  203 

Jahn, 116 

Jassy,  peace  of,  160 

Jena,  battle  of,  103 

Jesuits,  and  Pombal,  32 ;  d^eneracy 
of  the  order,  34 ;  their  expulsion 
from  Portugal,  34;  abolition  of 
the  order,  35  j  protected  in  Prussia 
and  Russia,  35,  36;  restored  in 
Rome,  143 

Jonkoping,  peace  of,  157 

Jordan,  119 

Joseph  I.  of  Portugal,  32 

Joseph  II.  of  Austria,  21  ;  his 
character  and  career,  23-27  ;  and 
Febronianism,  97 ;  Turlosh  policy, 
160 

Josephism,  26  n, 

Jovellanos,  146 

Jussieu,  245 


Kainardji,  peace  of,  160 
Kalisch,  treaty  of,  120 


336 


HISTORY   OF  MODERN   EUROPE 


Kant,  on  his  age,  6 ;  influence  on 
Germany,  115  ;  his  nebular  hypo- 
thesis, 229,  xi.  ;  his  critical  philo- 
sophy, 249-255 

Kara  George,  172 

Keats,  Saintsbury  on,  297  n.,  xv. 

Kiel,  treaty  of,  158 

Kirwan,  235 

Kolberg,  119 

Konig,  his  steam-printing  press,  207 

Koraes,  166,  167 

Korner,  116,  xv. 

Kostomarof,  15 

Kotzebue,  277 

Krauss,  215 

Kurhesse,  134 


Laharpe,  150 

Lamarck,  245,  xiv. 

Lancaster,  Joseph,  314  «. 

Laplace,  229,  232,  xiii. 

Lavoisier,  235,  236 

Law,  William,  318 

Leblanc,  205 

Legion  of  honour,  95 

Leibniz,  15,  228,  250 

Leipzig,  battle  of,  121 

Leopold  II.,  as  Emperor, ^26 ;  as 
Grand  Duke  in  Tuscany,  38,  143  j 
and  revolutionary  France,  87 

Lessing,  115,  261 

Lisbon,  earthquake  of,  32 

Literature  and  history ,260 ;  national, 
in  Germany,  115,  chap.  x.  ;  in 
Greece,  166  ;  in  Austria,  138;  in 
Italy,  37,  140 ;  in  Spain,  146 ; 
in  Russia,  155;  in  England, 
chap.  xi.  J  and  Cant,  294 

Locke,  7,  249 

Louis  XVI.,  50-54 

Louis  XVIII.,  122,  124 

Louisiana,  io8 

Luneville,  peace  of,  92,  102 

Lyell,  242 


M 


Machiavelli,  on  ecclesiastical  princi- 
palities,  95  ;  on  fortresses,  1 14  j 


on     "Uno     Spirito     Italiano," 
140  n. 

Machinery  and  operatives,  187  ; 
and  history,  194  ;  Watt's  steam- 
engine,  196 ;  wind-  and  water- 
mills,  water-pressure  engines, 
197  n.  ;  progress  of  the  mineral 
industries,  197,  199  ;  smelting, 
puddling,  and  rolling  iron,  198 ; 
the  miner's  safety  lamp,  199 ; 
cast  steel  as  tool  steel,  200 ; 
want  of  efficient  tools,  200 ;  de- 
velopment of  machine  tools,  201  ; 
causes  of  England's  industrial 
advance,  202 ;  cotton-spinning 
machinery,  203  ;  the  power-loom, 
204  ;  chemical  bleaching,  204  ; 
the  new  chemical  and  alkali 
trades,  205  ;  the  steam-printing 
press,  205 ;  the  paper-making 
machine,  207  ;  moral  character- 
istics of  the  great  inventors  and 
engineers,  208 ;  civil  engineer- 
ing, 179,  208  ;  place  of  the  un- 
employed, 221,  311 

Mahmoud,  ii,  163,  169 

Malesherbes,  51,  54 

Mai  thus  on  population,  2 1 5-2 17 

Malus,  232 

Maria  Theresa,  and  Austrian  re- 
form, 26  ;  and  the  Jesuits,  35 

Maskelyne,  227,  xii. 

Maudslay,  201 

Mayer  constructs  lunar  tables,  227 

Mercantile  theory.  Napoleon's,  107  ; 
in  economics,  209-211 

Methodism,  130,  284,  316 

Metternich,  127,  142 

Michelet,  98 

Middle  classes,  in  France,  75, 
107  n. ;  in  England,  190  j  rule 
of,  312 

Mill,  J.  S.,  on  speculative  beliefs, 
223 

Mill,  James,  treatment  of  associa- 
tionist  psychology,  258 

Milosh  Obrenovics,  172 

Modena,  143 

Mohs,  242  n. 

Monarchy,  at  the  head  of  the 
modern  state,  i  ;  in  eighteenth 
century,  3 ;  confidence  in,  10 ; 
interested  in  reforms,  1 1  j  Hume 


INDEX 


337 


on,  13 ;  as  a  reformer,  13,  14 ; 
Frederick  the  Great  on,  13  j  in 
Russia  under  Peter  I.,  14 ;  in 
Prussia  under  Frederick  II.,  18  ; 
in  Austria  under  Joseph  II.,  23  ; 
in  Russia  under  Catherine  II., 
28  ;  in  Portugal  under  Pombal, 
32 ;  in  Spain  and  Naples  under 
Charles  III.,  36,  37  ;  in  Tuscany 
under  Leopold,  38  ;  in  Piedmont 
under  the  House  of  Savoy,  38 ; 
in  the  Scandinavian  states,  39  j 
established  in  Denmark,  41  ;  in 
Sweden  under  Gustavus  III.,  42  ; 
failure  of,  in  Poland,  44  j  in 
England  under  George  III.,  48; 
in  France  under  Louis  XVI.,  50  ; 
failure  to  obviate  French  Revo- 
lution, 54 ;  decline  of  moral 
reputation,  56 ;  Holbach  on, 
57  n. ;  attacked  by  the  philo- 
sophers, 57  ;  precarious  position 
in  France,  64 ;  Montesquieu  on, 
73  ;  faults  in  first  revolutionary 
war,  88  ;  failure  in  Turkey,  161 ; 
prepared  for  the  national  idta, 
305  ;  survival  of  the  monarchical 
idea,  307  ;  monarchy  conceived 
of  as  limited,  309 

Montesquieu,  7  «. ;  on  monarchy, 
73.  77>  308 ;  on  commerce,  210 

Moravian  brotherhood  of  Herrn- 
hut,  316 

Morley,  John,  on  the  industrial  ex- 
pansion of  England,  174 

Mozart,  277,  xii. 

Murat,  142 

Murdoch,  200 

Music,  German,  277-280 


N 


Naples,  under  Charles  IV.,  37 ;  at 
the  Restoration,  138,  142,  143 

Napoleon  {see  Bonaparte),  on  de- 
gradation, 90 ;  policy  after  Auster- 
litz,  102 ;  overthrows  Prussia, 
103  ;  achieves  the  Peace  of  Tilsit, 
104 ;  issues  Berlin  decree,  106  ; 
invades  Spain,  109 ;  imposes 
Peace  of  Vienna,  ill  ;  invades 
Russia,  112  J  attacked  by  Prussia, 
Z 


120;  defeated  at  Leipzig,  121; 
deposed,  122 ;  the  Hundred 
Days,  122;  his  last  campaign, 
123  ;  death,  124 ;  as  an  agent  of 
the  Revolution,  131 ;  on  Liberal 
Government,  134  «.  ;  influence 
of  his  rule  on  Italy,  140 ;  criticizes 
Werther^  267 

Nationality,  in  Spain,  109 ;  lacking 
in  Germany,  114,  128 

National  Idea,  303-307 

Necker,  63,  75,  79 

Netherlands,  Kingdom  of,  128 

Newton,  7,  225,  230 

Nicholson  and  electrolysis,  238 

Notables,  French,  63 

Norway  united  to  Swedish  crown, 
158 

Novel,  modern,  282,  300  ;  of  com- 
mon life,  301 


Obrenovics,  Milosh,  172 

Onions,  198 

Ossian  in  Germany,  263,  266 


Pacca,  Cardinal,  143 

Parini,  140 

Paris,  first  peace  of,  125 

Parliaments  of  France,  63 

Parma,  143 

Pasvanoglu,  169 

Peter  the  Great,  his  example  to 
Europe,  15  ;  general  influence  on 
Russia  and  the  organization  of 
classes,  16-18  ;  uncertain  results 
of  his  reign,  18 ;  compared  with 
Frederick  the  Great,  18,  19 

Philike  Hetairia,  168 

Philomuse  Society,  166 

Philosophy,  materialistic  in  France, 
9,  58 ;  relation  to  science,  248  ; 
the  problem,  248;  Kant's  new 
point  of  view,  249 ;  the  critical 
method,  250  ;  extensive  influence 
of  the  critical  philosophy,  251  ; 
Kant's  moral  influence,  115,  253  ; 
common    sense,    255 ;    empirical 


HISTORY  OF  MODERN  EUROPE 


psychology,  256 ;  Hartley  on 
man,  256-258  ;  James  Mill's  An- 
alysis, 258 ;  influence  of  British 
speculation,  258;  in  nineteenth 
century,  314 

Pianoforte  and  chamber  music, 
279,  xi. 

Piedmont,  in  eighteenth  century, 
38  ;  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna, 
128  ;  Restoration  in,  143 

Pillnitz,  declaration  of,  84 

Pitt,  Lord  Chatham,  47,  xi. 

Pitt,  William,  and  third  coalition 
war,  loi  ;  his  finance,  181  n. ; 
and  reform,  191,  xii. 

Pius  VL,  38,  96 

Pius  VII.,  96 

Plato  on  despotism,  90 

Playfair,  242 

Poland,  anarchy  in,  44 ;  partitions 
of,  45 ;  republican  semblance, 
61  n. 

Pombal,  his  ministry  in  Portugal, 
32  ;  his  conflict  with  the  Jesuits, 

33 
Poniatowski,  Stanislaus,  45 
Pope,  282 
Portugal,  112,  145  ;  under  Pombal, 

32 
Poverty,    European     opmion     on, 

186  «. 
Presburg,  peace  of,  10 1 
Prices,  of  cotton  yarn,  203  ;  soda, 

bleaching  powder,  and  sulphuric 

acid,    206 ;    wheat  in  England, 

xiii.,  xiv.,  182  n. 
Priestley,  235,  258,  xii. 
Progress  and  industrial  expansion, 

321-323 
Prussia,  under  Frederick  the  Great, 
19  ;  after  Peace  of  Luneville,  94  ; 
after  Austerlitz,  102  ;  overthrown 
by  Napoleon,  103  ;  panic  in,  104  ; 
after  Tilsit,  105  ;  in  alliance  with 
Napoleon,  113  ;  its  leadership  of 
Germany,  Ii6  ;  reform  of  its 
army,  117;  turns  against  Na- 
poleon, 120  J  in  the  Waterloo 
Campaign,  123 ;  at  the  Congress 
of  Vienna,  126 ;  regeneration  of, 
134-137 ;  influence  of  Adam 
Smith,  214 


Quinet  on  Napoleon's  career,  131 


Rastadt,  congress  of,  92 
Rationalism  in  eighteenth  century, 

8  ;  in  France,  58 
Regensburg,  the  German  Diet  at, 

92 
Religion,  and  geology,  239  ;  Kant's 
treatment  of,  252-255  ;  religion 
for  religion's  sake,  315  ;  reinstate- 
ment of  the  religious  conscious- 
ness, 318.  See  Catholic  Church, 
Methodism. 

Revolution,  French,  rendered  in- 
evitable, 54 ;  till  then  unneces- 
sary, 55  ;  advent  of,  chap.  iii. ; 
not  due  to  misery  of  the  people, 
66 ;  its  proselytizing  character, 
86;  under  Bonaparte,  89,  91, 
131;  at  the  Restoration,  124; 
compared  with  English  industrial 
revolution,  174;  relation  between 
the  two  revolutions,  320  j  pre- 
judicial to  English  political  de- 
velopment, 190,  191  J  in  English 
literature,  289 

Revolution,  industrial,  English, 
chap.  vii.  j  Mantoux  on,  175  «. ; 
in  Europe,  309-314,  320.  See 
England,  and  Machinery. 

Rheinbund,  102 

Rhigas,  166,  167 

Ricardo,  218,  xv. 

Richardson,  282 

Rights  of  man  according  to  Ame- 
rican declaration,  56 

Rivarola,  143 

Robert,  Louis,  207 

Roebuck,  196,  205,  208 

Roemer,  230 

Rome,  at  the  Restoration,  143 

Romilly,  xiv. 

Rosenkampff,  153,  154 

Rousseau,  on  equality,  10  ;  theory 
of  natural  society,  58,  216  j  doc- 
trine of  politics,  59 ;  republican 
ideas,  60 ;  and  the  French 
peasant,  70,  308 


INDEX 


339 


Royer-Collard,  259 

Riickert,  116 

Rumford  (William  Thompson),  and 
the  dynamical  theory  of  heat,  23^3 

Russia,  under  Peter  the  Great,  14 ; 
institution  of  the  Tchin,  17 ; 
foreign  influences  in,  27  ;  under 
Catherine  II.,  28;  invaded  by 
Napoleon,  IT2;  at  the  Congress 
of  Vienna,  126  ;  under  Alex- 
ander I.,  150-156 ;  Peace  of 
Bucharest,  159;  alliance  with 
Servia,  171 ;  national  feeling  in, 
305 


San  Marino,  61 

Saxony,  made  a  kingdom,  105  ;  at 
the  Congress  of  Vienna,  126  ; 
conservatism  in,  133 

Say,  219,  xiv. 

Scharnhorst,  introduces  short  ser- 
vice system,  119 

Scheele,  204,  235,  236 

Schill,  III 

Schiller,  on  civil  conflict,  56  ;  on 
British  maritime  policy,  107  n.  ; 
on  Kant,  253 ;  on  freedom  in 
poetry,  260  ;  his  first  period,  272 ; 
comradeship  with  Goethe,  273  ; 
their  influence  on  German  culture, 
273  ;  as  patriotic  poet,  274,  xiii. 

Schleiermacher,  n6,  316-318 

Science,  and  general  history,  223  ; 
growth  of  positive  theory,  224 ; 
law  of  gravitation,  225 ;  con- 
struction of  lunar  tables,  226 ; 
general  acceptance  of  the  law  of 
gravity,  227  ;  sidereal  astronomy, 
228  ;  nebular  hypothesis,  229 ; 
theory  of  light,  230-232  ;  theory 
of  sound,  232  ;  dynamical  theory 
of  heat,  233  ;  phlogistic  theory  of 
chemistry,  234 ;  modern  theory 
of  combustion,  235 ;  institution 
of  modern  chemistry,  235-238  ; 
voltaic  electricity,  238 ;  positive 
theory  in  geology,  238-242 ; 
origin  of  palaeontology,  242 ; 
origin  of  crystallography,  244  n.  ; 
speculative  biology,    244;  early 


history  of  theory  of  evolution, 
245  ;  persistence  of  teleological 
conceptions  in  biology,  246 ;  re- 
lation between  science  and  philo- 
sophy, 248  J  helpful  to  industry, 
314 

Scott,  his  poems,  298;  his  novels, 
299,  xiii. 

Selim  III.,  159  ;  his  accession,  161  ; 
his  fall,  163 

Semler,  317 

Servia,  harassed  by  the  janissaries, 
1 70  ;  revolt  by  help  of  Russia, 
and  the  treaty  of  Bucharest,  171  ; 
defective  organization,  172  ;  de- 
feat, 172 

St.  Hilaire,  Geoffrey,  245,  247 

Shelley  and  sedition,  296,  xv. 

Sinclair,  Sir  John,  176  n. 

Sinking  fund,  Pitt's,  i8l  «. 

Smith,  Adam,  135,  154,  192,  TA^ 
Wealth  of  Nations^  21 1-2 14; 
practical  influence  on  Europe, 
215  J  his  error  respecting  rent, 
217 

Smith,  William,  242,  xv. 

Southey,  289  ;  as  a  man  of  letters, 
290,  xiii. 

Spain,  under  Charles  III.,  35,  36; 
misrule  of  Godoy,  108  ;  insurrec- 
tion against  Napoleon,  109,  112  ; 
Joseph's  rule,  144;  assembly  of 
the  Cortes,  145  ;  character  of  the 
Cortes,  146  ;  constitution  of  1812, 
147  ;  precarious  position  of  the 
Cortes,  147  ;  return  of  Ferdinand 
VII.,  148 ;  his  coup  d'etat^  149  ; 
inevitableness  of  civil  strife,  149 

Spencer  on  social  intercourse,  301 

Speranski,  his  ministry  and  fall, 
153-156,  215 

Spinoza  on  money,  21Q  n.  j  on 
religion,  317  /». 

Stadion,  no 

Stahl,  234 

Stanley,  Dean,  on  the  Eastern 
Church,  316  n. 

Stein,  118,  120,  128;  issues  edict 
of  emancipation,  135  ;  municipal 
reform,  136 ;  administrative  re- 
form, 137 

Storch,  215 

Squillace,  35 


340 


HISTORY   OF  MODERN   EUROPE 


St.  Germain,  51,  54 

States  -  General,  French  (fetats- 
Generaux),  63,  64,  78 

Streltsi,  destruction  of,  16 

Sweden,  in  eighteenth  century,  42- 
44  J  after  Congress  of  Vienna, 
129 ;  under  Carl  XIII.  and  Ber- 
nadotte,  156-159  ;  loses  Finland, 
129,  156  ;  acquires  Norway,  158  ; 
completes  Trollhoeta  canal,  158  «. 

Switzerland,  in  eighteenth  century, 
61 ;  after  Congress  of  Vienna, 
129 


Talleyrand,  on  legitimacy,  125 
Tanucci,  37 
Telford,  209 
Tennant,  204 

Thorpe  on  Dalton's  theory,  237  n. 
Tilsit,  peace  of,  104 
Tolly,  Barclay  de,  113 
Tomn,  Lilian,  on  early  cotton  manu- 
facture, iTT  n. 
Torres  Vedras,  112 
Tull,  Jethro,  on  virgilian  husbandry, 

Turgot,  7  n.  ;  his  ministry,  50-55 
Turkey,  106 ;  decay  of,  159 ;  de- 
generacy of  the  janissaries,  160  ; 
accession  of  Selim  III.,  161  ;  fall 
of  Selim  and  accession  of  Mah- 
moud  II.,  162 ;  elements  of  im- 
provement, 163 ;  new  phase  of 
revolt  against  Turkish  rule,  164 
Tuscany,  under  Grand  Duke  Leo- 
pold, 38  ;  at  the  Restoration,  143 


Ultramontanism,  modern,  97 
V 


Vauban,  68 
Vauquelin,  236,  242  n. 


Venaissin  annexed  to  France,  87 

Venice,  127,  142 

Vergennes,  53 

Victor  Amadeus  II.,  39 

Victor  Amadeus  ILL,  39 

Vienna,  peace  of,  iii 

Voltaire,  7  «.,  60  «.,  98,  209,  308 

W 

Wagram,  battle  of,  III 

Warsaw,  Duchy  of,  126 

Waterloo,  battle  of,  123 

Watt,  196,  200,  201,  204,  xi. 

Weiss,  242  n. 

Wellington,  in  Portugal,  112;  on 
citizen  armies,  120  «.  j  at  Water- 
loo, 123  ;  on  Spanish  constitu- 
tion, 147,  xiv. 

Werner,  240,  243,  xii. 

Wesley,  130,  284,  316-318 

Westphalia,  kingdom  of,  I05>  133) 
134  n. 

Wilkie,  299 

William  I.  of  the  United  Nether- 
lands, 129 

Winterschmidt,  197  n, 

Wollaston,  242  n. 

Wordsworth,  on  the  Convention  of 
Cintra,  109  ;  on  England's  dread 
of  change,  191  ;  on  disillusion, 
289  ;  as  critic  and  poet,  291-294, 
xiii. 

Wiirtemberg,  after  peace  of  Lune- 
ville,  94 ;  after  Austerlitz,  102  ; 
at  Congress  of  Vienna,  128  ;  re- 
forms in,  133  J  Duke  of,  272 


York,  120 

Young,  Arthur,  on  French  farm- 
ing, 69  n, ;  on  English  agriculture, 
176  ;  on  cow-keeping,  184  «.  j  on 
leases,  188 

Young,  Thomas,  on  scientific  law, 
223 ;  his  undulatory  theory  of 
light,    231  ;    on    Germany,    275, 


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